: 



; ' ,; 



■ 



[! 

;. : . . ■ ■ : : 
■ 









mm 




•V 



.*• 






V 









o 
..»' .'«. 



■ ■ , 



y . 



r- 



< s i° 

v - cv 









«5 















'-£ V 






v. 



HENRY CLAY PAYNE 



%%ilt 



MILWAUKEE 

BURDICK AND ALLEN, PRINTERS 
1907 









T" 



preface 



Milwaukee, October 4, 1906. 

Mrs. Lydia IV. Payne. 

Madame: At your request, with data mainly fur- 
nished by you and by Mr. Whitney, I have prepared the 
following biographical sketch of your husband. You will 
readily observe that not all the material placed at my 
disposal has been employed. At the time of Mr. Payne's 
death many of his friends and admirers wrote you letters 
of appreciation of his life and character and tributes of 
their affection for him. All of these I would gladly have 
gathered into these pages save that the result would have 
been a volume too cumbersome for biographical purpose 
and a cloying of the narrative by frequent repetition of the 
same encomium. I have therefore ventured to scatter 
through this volume only such letters of tribute and rem- 
iniscence as illustrate the successive periods of Mr. 
Payne's life and illuminate his character. I respectfully 
suggest to you that all the letters, used and unused, be 
bound in their autograph and preserved in some historical 
library. 

You will recall that you placed also in my hands a 
large number of clippings pertaining to the entire period 



of Mr. Payne's public career. Many of these he, himself, 
severed from newspapers and pasted in scrap books. 
Articles of praise and of criticism were alike included by 
him. Scanning these fugitive pieces has recalled to me 
many a slanderous accusation published concerning Mr. 
Payne during his busy and active life. Conscious of his 
rectitude of purpose, animated with a lofty desire to 
benefit his party, his city, his state, his country, Mr. Payne 
suffered those calumnies to pass unrefuted. I have not 
chosen to revivify them for the mere purpose of destroy- 
ing and denouncing them. 

To-day is the second anniversary of your distin- 
guished husband's death. To-day I complete this vol- 
ume portraying in some measure his career and character, 
and place it at your service. I trust that the interest I 
have felt in its preparation may be shared by you and by 

his friends in its perusal. 

William W. Wight. 



Contents 



Chapter 

I. Ancestry and Early Years i 

II. Northampton 9 

III. Early Life in Milwaukee 16 

IV. Early Elections 22 

V. The Milwaukee Post Office 27 

VI. The Milwaukee Club Dinner 35 

VII. ''Milwaukee a Republican County" 40 

VIII. Business Again 48 

IX. Concerning Street Railways 56 

X. The Northern Pacific Receivership 79 

XL Later Elections and the St. Louis Convention 86 

XII. Unequal Representation in Conventions .... 99 

XIII. McKinley and Roosevelt 107 

XIV. Postmaster-General 114 

XV. Investigation of the Post Office Department 123 

XVI. "The Charges Concerning Members" 142 

XVII. The Last Things 162 

XVIII. "An Unappreciated Type" 175 



CHAPTER I 



ancestrp ann <2Barlp gears 

In the records of the ancient town of Braintree, in the 

colony of Massachusetts Bay, is entered this paragraph: 

Deacon Samuel Bass, aged 94, departed this life upon the 30th 
day of December, 1694; who had been a deacon of the church of 
Braintree for tbe space of above 50 years, and the first deacon of 
that church; and was the father and grandfather and great grand- 
father of a hundred and sixty-two children before he died.* 

Among the great grandchildren of this venerable 
patriarch of the early church of New England was 
Samuel Paine. He was born in the spring of 1689 and 
was grandson of Stephen Paine and Hannah Bass and son 
of Stephen Paine and Ellen Veasey. These three genera- 
tions of Paines and Mr.f Moses Paine, the father of the 
earlier Stephen, were dwellers in Braintree. Here was 
born June 30, 1735, Samuel's son, Joseph Ruggles Paine, 
whose sirname in the records often lacked the final letter. 
He was a soldier in the company of Captain Jabez Snow, 
in the wars so frequent against the French and Indians, 
in the decade before the American Revolution. 

About 1767 Joseph Ruggles Pain journeyed west- 
ward from Braintree and made his home in the south- 
western part of what is now Franklin County, Massa- 
chusetts, in the town of Ashfield. 



*Thayer's Family Memorial, page 53. 

t"Mr." is always found with the name of Moses Paine. In the 
early records Mr. imports social precedence. 



Henry Clay Payxi; : A Life 



Early Ashfield had experienced as disturbed, if not as 
sad and memorable, a history as its neighbor Deerfield. 
More than once abandoned through fear of Indian massa- 
cres, more than once re-occupied, it had finally, in 1765, 
become incorporated as a town. 

It is not an especially fertile region. It abounds in 
hills whose deep valleys lend themselves more profitably 
to grazing than to tillage. In one of the almost inacces- 
sible and quite solitary portions of Ashfield, almost on 
the line of Buckland town, near a small settlement now 
called Baptist Corners, can still be seen the cellar of the 
home of Joseph Ruggles Pain. The cluster of houses 
took its name from the church near at hand, whose site is 
indicated by a granite boulder, bearing a tablet with this 
legend, "First Baptist Church, built 1775, removed 183 1." 
Adjoining the Pain home was the house where was born 
Mary Lyon, the founder of Mount Holyoke seminary. 
Near by is the meager and ill-kept graveyard where are 
still seen the mortuary stones showing that Joseph R. 
Pain died April 17, 1822, aged eighty-eight years, and 
that his wife Mehetable (whose maiden name was Git- 
tings) died February 18, 1831, aged eighty-five years. 

Of the family life of this couple upon their Ashfield 
farm, little is preserved. We know that Joseph was a 
soldier in the war of the Revolution, in the regiment of 
Colonel Elijah Porter, his enlistment beginning July 10, 
1777.* We know also that he was the father of two 
daughters and six sons, that one of these last was named 
Joseph, and that his wife was Anna Billings. Their son, 
Stephen Payne — for so the sirname now began to be 



♦Revolutionary War Archives, XXII, 37. 



Ancestry and Early Years 



spelled — married Laura Elmer, who was born February 
18, 1800. Among several children of this wedlock was 
Orrin Pierre Payne, born May 22, 1820, the father of the 
subject of this biography. 

The home of Orrin, the natal spot of his son Henry, 
was not at Baptist Corners, but in Ashfield village, called 
also Ashfield Plain, and colloquially Shirkshire. The 
house was a two-story frame cottage, with ample porch 
in front, gambrel roof and dormer windows, sheltered 
with abundant trees and having a road leading along be- 
hind to the cosy barn. Here Orrin brought his wife Eliza 
Etta Ames, whom he married November 13, 1842. She 
was the daughter of Samuel and Amarylis (Mallory) 
Ames and was born at Stockton, New York, June 22, 
1826. 

Of their four children, two were born in Ashfield : 
Henry Clay, born November 23, 1843, an< I Imogene, born 
September 21, 1845. Imogene is the wife of Winfield 
Scott Cameron and resides at Jamestown, New York. 

About 1846 the family of four removed to the neigh- 
boring village of Shelburne Falls. Although young 
Henry was thus separated from his native town when he 
was but three years of age, he never forgot Ashfield or 
neglected in mature manhood to visit the scenes of his in- 
fancy. Nor have the inhabitants of Ashfield ceased to 
take pride in one of the most honored of her sons. Since 
his death the people of Ashfield have requested, and re- 
ceived, his portrait for the adornment of their Town Hall. 

In 1846 Shelburne Falls was a place of no little repute. 
It is a village split in two by the Deerfield River, which 
here severs Shelburne town from Buckland. At different 
times the Paynes lived on both sides of the Deerfield 



Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



River, which here is bridged. One of their homes was a 
white frame cottage, ivy trimmed, two stories in height, 
with sloping roof, and the porch extending outward to 
the walk in front. Somewhat later their home was one of 
a neat row of two story frame houses with generous win- 
dows and wide green blinds. 

At Shelburne Falls were born the two younger of the 
children of Orrin and Eliza Payne. These were Frederick 
Wells, born August 26, 1847, anc l Mary Eliza, born April 
7, 1 85 1. The latter died when quite young; Frederick 
died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. July 27, 1876, being then 
deputy collector of internal revenue in Milwaukee. 

The Paynes of Shelburne Falls were not a family of 
wealth or even of moderate competency. Orrin Payne 
carried the mail between Shelburne Falls and Green- 
field, and upon occasion was deputy of the high sheriff. 
He was a man of high character, of force and de- 
termination, and sought the advancement of his chil- 
dren. That he named his oldest child in honor of 
the great Whig leader of the United States not only 
indicates the trend of his politics, hut suggests that 
the son may have inherited from his father his bent for 
public affairs. The father died December 20, 1886; the 
mother predeceased him on April 3. 18S6. She also was 
a person of mental strength and native ability. 

Young Henry's earliest essays at knowledge were in 
the district school. But, one day when he was about eight 
years of age he was observed to be peering curiously 
through the window of the private school on Conway 
Street, where his sister lmogene was at study. Asked 
his errand by the teacher. Miss Diana S. Bowen, he re- 
quested, and was accorded, permission to become a pupil. 



Ancestry and Early Years 



Thus began a friendship between that young student and 
his teacher, which never faltered. Miss Bowen was one 
of those natural instructors who exert an abiding in- 
fluence over the growing mind. That influence was 
especially exerted over Henry, in whose busy, thoughtful 
intellect she early saw the promise of great success. As 
long as he lived they maintained a frequent correspond- 
ence, while his gratitude for her counsels and respect for 
her instruction found annual expression more substantial 
than words. Miss Bowen, almost an octogenarian,* still 
survives, in North Adams, Massachusetts, to mourn that 
too frequent reversal of nature by which fathers outlive 
their sons and teachers their pupils. 

From Miss Bowen's school Henry passed to the 
Franklin Academy. This academy was a famous build- 
ing when completed in 1830, for it was the first three- 
story structure erected in Franklin County, and people 
journeyed from all about to Shelburne Falls to gaze upon 
its dizzy height. f There was little inspiration to study 
in its plain brick walls, evenly punctuated with rows of 
unornamented windows, and with the bare playground in 
front. From this school Henry graduated in 1859. 

But he had other employment than study while in 
Shelburne Falls. When yet quite young and so short that 
his eyes scarce appeared above the counter, he worked 
after school hours in the store of L. M. Packard. From 
this store he promoted himself eventually to a position in 
the village post office, Miss Bowen's brother, Alfred, be- 
ing then the postmaster. The office then stood not far 

*Miss Bowen was born in March, 1827. 
fCrittenclen's Personal Recollections, 17. 



Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



from the bridge upon the north side of the Main Street — 
an insignificant one-story affair with a plenitude of porch. 
Here for a stipend of one dollar per week, Henry did the 
daily chores and ran the early errands ere hastening to 
school. He did not occupy this position very long, how- 
ever, yielding the place to his friend, Charles Albert May- 
nard, now of Northampton, Massachusetts. 

The Payne family in Shelburne Falls, like their an- 
cestors at Baptist Corners, were of the Baptist denomina- 
tion and attended the ancient meeting house of that faith 
in Shelburne Falls — a brick, ivy-grown, Gothic-arched, 
square-towered building, still used as the Baptist church. 
Here preached the Rev. E. H. Gray, later a chaplain in 
the United States Senate; here Henry's mother and sister 
sang in the village choir, and here it was Henry's occupa- 
tion regularly to pump the organ for the Sunday singing. 

On Saturdays Henry's duties as secretary of The 
Band of Hope, called him punctually to its meetings. 
Declamations and recitations were the chief feature of 
these gatherings, and it was observed that the speeches of 
statesmen like Patrick Henry and Webster were his 
favorite efforts. Indeed it has not yet been forgotten in 
Shelburne Falls that political topics were often the theme 
of his conversation, and that these he could discuss with 
his elders with ability and skill. His father used to relate 
that when Henry, at the age of fifteen years, was recover- 
ing from typhoid fever, the burden of his daily request 
was that the newspapers should be saved for him until he 
was strong enough to read. Election day arrived ere he 
was fully convalescent and his father, at his earnest peti- 
tion, carefully protected the young invalid and bore him 
to the polls that he might watch his father vote. 



Ancestry and Early Years 



In the fall of 1859 Henry took his first brief flight 
from the parental roof, thus gradually severing the home 
ties which were soon to be perpetually broken. Yet Shel- 
burne Falls always held a warm place in his heart. 
Thither he returned with delight longr after the death of 
his parents abolished the home life there. To no other 
place did his own death bring keener sorrow. When the 
village was erecting a Memorial Hall for the soldiers of 
Shelburne Falls who died in the War of 1861, he was 
written to for a subscription of one hundred dollars. The 
money was forthcoming by return mail, with a cordial 
letter from Mr. Payne and an intimation that the sub- 
scription would have been much larger had it been asked. 

In the lobby of the post office at Shelburne Falls, in 
the Shelburne Falls Club rooms, in the Arms Library, his 
picture, by the request of these institutions, now hangs, 
attesting the belief of those who gaze upon the face that 
they "have been made better by coming in contact with a 
nature so genial and genuine as Henry Payne's." 

Beginning with the fall term of 1859 Henry and his 
friend, Charles Maynard, went together to Powers In- 
stitute at Bernardston, a place quite a distance northeast 
of Shelburne Falls, but in the same county of Franklin. 
The Institute was then but two years old, having been 
established by the liberality of Edward Epps Powers, a 
citizen of Columbus, Georgia, but a native of Bernards- 
ton. Henry and Charles roomed together during the 
terms of 1859 and i860. Charles did not return for a 
second year, but his brother, Austin S. Maynard, later a 
merchant of Worcester. Massachusetts, was a pupil, and 
the roommate of Flenry during the terms of i860 and 
1 86 1. During this period Professor La Fayette Ward 



8 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

was the principal of the Institute — a teacher highly- 
spoken of by them of his tutelage, but compelled by fail- 
ing health to abandon the scholastic life in 1870. 

As the year 1861 and the age of eighteen years closed 
Henry's school privileges, it is not amiss here to record 
that he was a quick and keen student, that he grasped 
readily the problems and the principles of the subjects he 
pursued, that his habits were scholarly, his personality en- 
gaging, his heart kindly, and that he was ever ready to 
assist the perplexed plodder who lagged by the way. 



Northampton 



CHAPTER II 



Henry's removal to Northampton, Massachusetts, was 
upon the advice of his former teacher, Miss Bowen, who 
coveted a wider field for her promising pupil. The exact 
date of this removal is not discovered, but it appears that 
Henry returned from Bernardston to his father's home in 
Shelburne Falls in the spring of 1861, and that within a 
year he had taken a position as a clerk in a store in 
Northampton. This was the store of F. R. Sherwin and 
Company — a partnership consisting of Frank R. Sherwin 
(a former Shelburne Falls acquaintance, somewhat older 
than Henry) and John Warner — dealers in dry goods 
and cloaks on Main Street, being the store now occupied 
by A. G. Fearing. 

With this firm Henry remained until the senior mem- 
ber, inoculated with the Western fever, caused its dissolu- 
tion, January 26, 1863. An advertisement in the papers 
of the next day, signed by Mr. Sherwin, informed the 
business world that "Henry C. Payne has power of attor- 
ney for the transaction of all business in the name of the 
subscriber. All business of the late firm is left in his 
hands for settlement." This was perhaps the first appear- 
ance in print of the name of Henry C. Payne — a name 
which, upon his death forty years later, filled the papers 
of the continent. 

After closing up this business and after, for a few 



10 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

days, "assisting Stoddard and Lincoln in taking an in- 
ventory and in writing up their books," Henry accepted 
employment as bookkeeper some two miles from the 
center of Northampton, in the office of the paper mill firm 
of William Clark and Company. The partnership was 
composed of William Clark and his sons, William and 
Lucius Clark. This employment began March 23, 1863, 
and continued until about the beginning of October, 1863, 
the compensation being at the rate of two hundred and 
fifty dollars per year. On the fifth of the latter month, 
having himself contracted the Western fever, Henry, as 
his diary tells us, "bade good-bye to Northampton." 

We pause before following him to the city of his per- 
manent home, because the glimpses of his daily life in 
Northampton, obtained from his diary and from the 
reminiscences of his Northampton friends, are very use- 
ful in enabling us to picture, and to appreciate, a character 
now pretty thoroughly formed. 

Employing the sermonic method of dividing the sub- 
ject, it will be said that the following traits of the youth- 
ful Henry's character appear : 

Firstly, he took a deep interest in the affairs of his 
country. The struggle waging so bitterly and so unsuc- 
cessfully in 1862 for the preservation of the union of the 
states, lay heavily upon his mind. His interest found 
sincerest expression in his effort to enlist, and in his urg- 
ing his friends, Charles and Austin Maynard, then in 
Boston, to follow his example. His recruiting letter thus 

reads : 

Northampton, Aug. 22, 1862. 
Friend Charley : 

I am going to enlist in a company raising here. Now, won't 
you come and go, too? It is a good company and good men and 



North AMPT- 11 



fellows in it. Some of the first in town. I hear that Austin is 
with you. Tell him to come up here with you and go with me. It 
is only for nine months, and you know that will pass away soon. 

1 leave as good a place as any one could wish. I never was so 
well pleased in my life. Have things all my own way. But you 
know we should not look to self as much now. We owe our lives 
to our country and to our God, and by the grace of God I will lay 
down my life for it. 

Now come without fail. Don't mind your place. You can't be 
more pleasantly situated than I am. 

Write me as soon as you receive this, telling me what you will 
do. Don't say you won't go. Write soon. .... 

It is the fault of nature, not of Henry Payne, that his 
career was not military. He applied for enlistment in 
Company H of the Tenth Massachusetts Infantry regi- 
ment, but he was rejected as being too slight and as be- 
ing undersized. This regiment and the Fifty-second 
Massachusetts regiment were largely composed of soldiers 
gathered from the neighborhood of Northampton and 
Shelburne Falls, and he followed the movements of these 
troops with great concern, marking their campaigns and 
the number of their casualties.* Moreover, his diary for 
the year 1863 shows how his mind was running upon the 
struggle. Thus, under July 14, "Began to draft to-day ;" 
under July 15, "Drafted in Buckland to-day;" under July 
16, "Charles Fieldt drafted;" under July 16, "Came back 
to Greenfield, and saw them draft from Northampton. 

*The Fifty-second Massachusetts was a regiment of nine months 
men whose service was in Louisiana. Its enlistment expired in 
August, 1863. The Tenth regiment served entirely in the Army of 
the Potomac. It was recruited June 21, 1861, and saw sanguinary 
service at Fair Oaks. Fredericksburg, the Gettysburg Campaign, the 
Wilderness, Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. Its enlistment ended 
June 21, 1864, when ten officers and 137 men were discharged. 

fCharles Field had been Henry Payne's roommate in the house 
of Mr. Henry Shepherd from the autumn of 1862 until the following 
spring, when Henry removed to the home of Mrs. Elihu Clark on 
Elm Street. 



12 Henry Clay Payxe: A Life 

List of drafted men" — then follows a list of two hundred 
and twenty men, not a few of them doubtless Henry's 
personal friends.* 

We read further, under May 6 and May 7 that the de- 
feat of General Hooker at Fredericksburg was the "sad- 
dest news of the war;" under May 24, "Great news from 
Vicksburg;" under July 6, "Good news from army Poto- 
mac;" under July 7, "News of taking of Vicksburg, great 
rejoicing" — laconic entries in a laconic diary, yet disclos- 
ing the public spirit and patriotism of the lad of nineteen. 

Secondly, Henry was scrupulous as to his obligations 
to his employers. His service was not merely a matter of 
regularly drawing his stipulated wage, but rather of sub- 
stantially advancing his employers' interests, which with 
loyalty and enthusiasm he invariably made his own. No 
clerk, shouting the praises of a competitor's merchandise, 
could outtalk or outsell Henry. No friend of either sex, 
with any blandishment, could entice him to recreations or 
amusements during the hours mortgaged to another's 
business. Thus early as ever afterward he conscien- 
tiously respected his contracts of service. 

Thirdly, in Henry's opinion there were other things 
in life besides work and worry. His was essentially a 
happy, joyous, mirthful nature. He found keen pleasure 
in sports and games; his look was on life's bright side; 
his laugh was frequent, long and contagious. The limit 
of his love for fun and mischief was only reached when 
he caused grief or pain to others. His diary discloses 
many different kinds of congenial amusements — bowling, 



*For account of the draft in Massachusetts in 1863, see War of 
the Rebellion Official Records, Serial Number 124, references in 
Index under Massachusetts. 



Northampton 13 



boating, ball, chess, cards, fishing, hunting; while sedater 
diversions — concerts, plays, lectures, reading clubs — were 
not neglected. He was accounted in Northampton an ex- 
cellent singer, and under his leadership the old-fashioned 
tunes were sung with such relish and in such ringing tones 
that even Old Hundredth and Henley ceased to be doleful. 

A person thus genial and blithe, and withal generous 
and high minded, must win and hold a host of friends. 
This was Henry's lot — he made friends and he never for- 
got them. The universal opinion of those who have writ- 
ten of his early years is, that, with an attractive per- 
sonality, he was considerate of children, chivalrous to- 
wards young women, hearty and whole-souled with his 
fellows. 

Fourthly, earnestness and concentration were his lead- 
ing characteristics. Nothing was done by him in a half- 
hearted way. A Northampton friend has written that, 
when lie was reading, the surrounding world vanished 
from his thought. Seated one day in a boat, which he 
believed was moored to the river's bank, his face was 
buried in the pages of his book, only to be lifted to the 
realities of life when his bark bumped against a pier far 
down the Connecticut. The same earnestness was evident 
even in his games — they were played for results. He 
never sat at cards just "to make up a hand," simply "to 
the time away." but, like the celebrated Mrs. Battle, 
to win. and with all the "rigour of the game." Not a few 
entries in his diary disclose the name of his partner, the 
names of the opponents and the score, which almost al- 
ways was liis victory. That same energy and desire to 
conquer, that same masterful spirit, ruled him later in 



14 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



the sterner conflicts of his busy career and brought him 
victory in the end. 

Fifthly, it cannot be said that at this time Henry made 
prominent the religious side of his nature. Yet his diary 
discloses his regular attendance upon Sunday services, 
while his frequent singing of the hymns of the church 
suggests his familiarity with their truths. Moreover, the 
letter above printed in which he urged two of his friends 
to enlist, betrays that Henry needed only the stimulus of 
deep emotion to reveal his reliance upon "the grace of 
God." 

That the traits of his youth followed him into his 
maturer years there is no lack of evidence. One who 
knew him long and well, his political opponent, but his 
warm personal friend, wrote after Henry's death the fol- 
lowing expressions as to his business and social traits. 
They proceed from the pen of Judge James G. Jenkins, 
of Milwaukee, formerly of the United States Circuit 

Court, seventh circuit: 

He was a thorough business man, quiet, unobtrusive, but watch- 
ful and thorough. Once convinced of the proper course to pursue, 
he had the indomitable will to follow that course regardless of 
opposition, which only intensified his action. In that respect I have 
seen him tried as few men have been tested, and he came from the 
crucible refined gold. No consideration of mere business success 
could swerve him from what he deemed just and honorable. Against 
the opposition even of friends and associates in business, he stood for 
what he deemed the right. He was a high-minded, public-spirited 
citizen, generous to a fault, aiding every worthy public enterprise, 
helpful to the deserving needy. 

It is, however, in the light of his social character that I love to 
consider him. Here he shone resplendent. When he could for a 
time lay aside the burden of life's cares and troubles, with boyish 
enthusiasm he revelled in the delights of social life and friendly 
intercourse. Here he was at home and at ease. He was loyal, 
sincere, true. His friends he "grappled to his heart with hoops of 



Northampton 15 



steel." He loved their society. He loved their fi hip, and to a 

marked degree he compelled the love of those who felt constrained 
to oppose his course. Bright, joyous, sympathetic, he delighted in 
the innocent pleasures of life with the ardor of youth. Only with 
the passing away of the friends who for a time remain, shall the 
memory of his genial and lovable character perish from the earth. 
The memory of his service to his country is secured in the history 
of the nation. 

A single sentence from another political opponent, a 
dweller in a far distant state, Congressman Ariosto A. 
Wiley, of Montgomery, Alabama : 

I knew him well and never met a more gracious and kindly, 
natural gentleman. 



16 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



CHAPTER III 



GEarlp Life in a^itoaukee 

The influence of his former employer doubtless brought 
Henry Payne to Milwaukee. Not a few jottings in the 
diary of 1863 refer to the subject: Under August 15, 
"Am going to Milwaukee;" August 17, "Morton* is go- 
ing to M. with me;" August 28, "Sherwin is to pay me 
$700 per year;" October 5, "Went home on P.M. train 
for good;" October 11, "Start for Milwaukee at 12 
o'clock to-night." 

But the day before this start was made Henry re- 
turned to Northampton upon the invitation of the em- 
ployes of the paper mill to accept their tender of a dinner 
to take place in the evening of October 10. at The Prospect 
House, upon Mount Holyoke. The dinner, which was at- 
tended by sixty-three persons, was followed by dancing, 
singing and walking upon the mountain roads until the 
night was fully consumed. The register of The Prospect 
House is still preserved at the hotel and contains Henry's 
autograph, with the address "Milwaukee, Wis." — evi- 
dence of his pride in the new life opening before him. 

And now began Henry's sojourn from his home — a 
home which lie did not see again for eighteen years. His 
father conveyed him and his mother by vehicle to North 



his was Josiah L. Morton, a Northampton friend, often men- 
tioned in the diary. Me left for Milwaukee earlier than Henry and 
was for a time his fellow clerk. Eventually Mr. Morton began 
business for himself on Spring Street. 



Early Life in Milwaukee 17 

Adams, where the train was taken for Troy, New York. 
At Troy a farewell visit was paid to his sister, Imogene, 
then a pupil at the seminary of Mrs. Emma Willard.* 
He then visited in and near Salem, New York, with kins- 
folk of his mother and hade her farewell on Saturday, 
October 17. His diary for Tuesday, October 20, records, 
"Rode all night and got to Chicago somewhat behind, 
took noon train for Milwaukee, got there at 9 p.m., took 
room at Newhall House" — a hotel which friends in 
Northampton had recommended. October 21 recites, 
"Began for Sherwin, Nowell & Pratt. Board on Jack- 
son Street." 

Milwaukee, to which city Mr. Payne made his bow in 
the fall of 1863, was a very insignificant municipality in 
comparison with the metropolis to which his lifeless body 
was returned in the fall of 1904. It was a city of about 
thirty-five thousand inhabitants, having nine wards, and 
with Mr. Edward O'Neil as mayor. No buildings of 
especial size or ambition lifted themselves skyward, there 
were no public water works, no park system and no show 
avenues. The post-office — an insignificant structure — 
stood on the northwest corner of Wisconsin and Milwau- 
kee Streets, Mr. John Lockwood being postmaster. A 
street car company, known as the River and Lake Shore 
City Railway Company, with Mr. George H. Walker as 
president, had a single track on East Water Street, from 
Walker's Point bridge to Division Street,t and a branch 
to Prospect Street by way of Wisconsin, Jefferson, Biddle, 

*At the suggestion of Miss Diana S. Bowen, Miss Payne was 
attending this seminary to qualify herself as a teacher. The entire 
expense of her transportation and tuition was met by her brother 
Henry. 

t-\'<nv Juneau Avenue. 



18 Henry Clay Payxe : A Life 



Van Buren and Division Streets — the rolling- stock, three 
two-horse vehicles and two one-horse vehicles. What is 
now the Public Library, with its ornate building- on Grand 
Avenue, then consisted of a meager collection of literature 
belonging to the Young Men's Association, housed in 
rented quarters at Number 91 Mason Street. The ship- 
ping to and from Milwaukee was then meager; the steam 
railway service was feeble, and the various roads uncon- 
nected. Indeed, the present full-blown rose Milwaukee 
was, in 1863, just beginning to bud. 

The firm with which Mr. Payne became associated — 
for now that he has approached his majority, he must no 
longer be styled Henry — was composed entirely of men 
then new in Milwaukee. Mr. Sherwin had preceded him 
from Northampton by a few weeks only; Edward F. 
Pratt was a young merchant, recently from the East, who 
lived at first at the hotels, but later, upon his marriage, 
resided upon the lake front : Winslow A. Xowell had ar- 
rived this same year from the city of New York, a youth 
seeking his fortune.* The firm was established in the 
business of selling dry goods at wholesale and retail at 
Numbers 372 and 374 East Water Street, a store on the 
east side of the street between Wisconsin and Michigan 
Streets. Among the competitors of this new partnership 
there are still existing in Milwaukee under varying change 
of name, T. A. Chapman and Company, Goll and Frank, 
Kroeger and Brother and H. Stern. Junior and Brother. 
But the new firm as first constituted was of short dura- 



*Mr. Nowell also made Milwaukee a permanent home. He was 
a friend and political associate of Mr. Payne, and died in Milwaukee, 

I sixty-five years, April 26, 1905. Mr. Pratt died February 25, 
1886. 



Early Life in Milwaukee 19 

tion. Indeed, in January, 1864, a dissolution had taken 
place, the senior partner had removed to New York, 
where his interests were now located, and Mr. Payne, 
with a power of attorney, was conducting the business in 
the same store, he being the silent partner in the firm. 
The new business continued some two or three years and 
then came to an end. There was too little capital for suc- 
cess; Air. Payne, whose sole resources when he arrived in 
Milwaukee in 1863 were fifty dollars, was in no financial 
condition to bolster up a business in which competition 
was eager and brisk. 

In 1868 the firm of H. C. Payne and Company was in 
existence at the same numbers on East Water Street, in 
the same general line of trade.* This partnership was 
also of short duration, and the business passed into other 
hands. In 1869 Mr. Payne opened a store with Mr. 
William H. Crombie at Number 385 East Water Street, 
also for the sale of dry goods. But it was not intended 
that Air. Payne should succeed as a merchant. The new 
firm existed somewhat more than a year and in 187 1 Mr. 
Payne was out of business — convenient opportunity for 
the now approaching career in which his name was to 
shine resplendent. 

Mr. Payne's early domestic life in Milwaukee was 
migratory. He tells us in his diary, of date next after his 
arrival, that he went to "board on Jackson Street." Then 
we read. "Went to minstrels in eve with Morton and his 
uncle." On December 16, 1863, he notes, "Went to Mrs. 
Saxes' on Main Streetf to board — room at store." In 



*Mr. John G. Gregory, now of the Evening Wisconsin, Mil- 
waukee, who worked for above firm in 1868, states that Mr. Payne 
invariably "enlisted the loyalty of his workmen." 

fMain Street became, later, Broadway. 



20 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

1865 Mr. Payne was living on Prospect Street near 
Knapp Street, but in 1868 he enjoyed hotel life at the 
Newhall House. Thence he went to board at Number 
210 Biddle Street, and was dwelling there at the time of 
his marriage. Thereupon the couple kept house for a 
brief period at Number 1 14 Prospect Street.* From 1889 
until their removal to Washington, they resided at Num- 
ber 586 Astor Street. 

Some five years after Mr. Payne's arrival in Milwau- 
kee, there visited in that city at the residence of her sister, 
Mrs. Charles P. Jones, at Number 570 Waverly Place, a 
young lady from the city of New York, Lydia Wood Van 
Dyke.f Mr. Payne formed her acquaintance, gained her 
friendship, sought and won her in marriage — an event 
which occurred in Mount Holly, New Jersey, October 15, 
1869. 

Upon the privacy of the home thus established this 
book seldom intrudes. Suffice it to say here, that not long 
after her marriage Mrs. Payne became afflicted with rheu- 
matic gout, resulting in chronic invalidism and in a daily 
routine almost completely sedentary. Those intimate 
with Mr. Payne in his early wedlock delight to recall the 
affectionate care with which he waited upon his wife, 
wheeling her in her chair either for exercise or social 
visits, and otherwise watching over the fragile existence 

* Prospect Street did not become Prospect Avenue until about 
1876. 

tShe was the daughter of Richard Van Dyke. Junior, and Mary 
Ware Thomas, both of the city of New York. Mr. Van Dyke com- 
menced his early business life as a member of the firm of Bleeker and 
Van Dyke, real estate auctioneers. Mr. Bleeker was much older than 
the junior partner. The latter soon withdrew from this partnership and 
formed with Mr. Blcekcr's relative. Theodore Malaby, the real estate 
firm of Van Dyke and Malaby. Still later Mr. Van Dyke went into 
other business. 



Early Life in Milwaukee 21 

entrusted to his love with unwearying- anxiety. That de- 
votion never flagged during a union which, although 
childless, was congenial and sympathetic. The career of 
the invalid thus tenderly cared for outspanned that of her 
husband. This wreath is placed upon his tomb by the 
wish of his wife, in loving memory of him who, during 
his early manhood and in his advancing age, in his poverty 
and in his affluence, in his obscurity and in his renown, 
made her his constant and affectionate solicitude. 



22 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



CHAPTER IV 



OBatlp (Elections 

Not long after removing to Milwaukee, Mr. Payne 
connected himself with the Young Men's Association of 
that city, whose collection of books and periodical litera- 
ture and whose winter lecture courses were well calculated 
to avert loneliness, occupy leisure and supplement an edu- 
cation all too limited. Mr. Payne became an influential 
member of the Association and, on May 8, 1866, was 
elected a trustee in one of those mimic skirmishes, char- 
acteristic of the Young Men's Association, which had all 
the elements of excitement and vigor peculiar to a political 
contest. Mr. Alfred L. Cary of Milwaukee has written 
an account of this election which I cannot refrain from 

transcribing : 

For several years I had been secretary of the Association and 
active in its management, and became ambitious to be its president. 
I came out as a candidate for that office at the annual election in 
May, 1866. As there were to be two tickets in the field and a lively 
contest, I sought to make my ticket as strong as possible, and with 
that view solicited Mr. Payne to be a candidate for one of the trus- 
tees. He readily assented, and entered into the contest with a re- 
markable activity and zeal, which could only have been prompted 
and guided by a natural love and aptitude for conflicts of that char- 
acter. The battle was a royal one, and when its smoke had cleared 
away and the result ascertained. Mr. Payne was found to be the only 
candidate upon our ticket who had been elected. It was his per- 
sonal popularity which made him successful at this time, and I have 
often thought that perhaps this little experience and success at an 
election of the Young Men's Association was the initiative of that 



Early Elections 23 



larger experience and success which Mr. Payne afterwards had in 
the city, county, state and national campaigns, and which made him 
famous as a political manager. 

It was Mr. Payne's genial companionship which endeared him 
to his friends, and in the enjoyment of which they would forget that 
he was one of our most distinguished citizens. 

Mr. Payne continued to support the Association dur- 
ing the presidencies of Loyal R. Durand (Mr. Cary's 
competitor), John Nazro, Henry H. West, James G. 
Jenkins, John E. Eldred, Robert Hill and Charles L. 
Peirce.* On May 13, 1872, Mr. Payne was elected the 
secretary of the Association, and on May 11, 1874, he 
succeeded Air. Peirce as the president and served for one 
year.t Thereafter Mr. Payne was never a candidate for 
any elective office, civil or political. 

But Mr. Payne's mind had long been occupied with 
contests of wider scope and larger import. The state 
elections of 1863 were of intense interest throughout the 
north. These elections afforded the voters their first op- 
portunity to express their opinion on the attitude of the 
party in power in continuing the enlistment of soldiers for 
the war for the Union, even to the extreme of drafting 
them. Mr. Payne's diary for 1863 shows his interest in 
this subject, even though he had not then reached voting 
age: November 3, "Went to Union headquarters under 
Newhall House; great rejoicing over result;" November 
4, "Republicans carried all the states; made a clean 
sweep." 



*Of these young men two, Judge Jenkins and .Mr. Eldred, sur- 
vive as citizens of Milwaukee. Mr. Hill died July 3, 1906, while this 
chapter was in writing. 

tSome two years or more after Mr. Payne's term as president 
expired, the Association, which had existed since December 20. 1 
transferred its property to the city of Milwaukee. This took place 
March 8, 1878, under the authority of Chapter 7, Laws of 1S78, ap- 
proved February 7. 1878. The present public library of the city is the 
result of this action. 



24 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Mr. Payne, although an ardent Republican, did not 
become actively connected with his party organization un- 
til the year 1872. At that time a great wave of disaffec- 
tion had spread over the country, affecting very many 
German Republicans, while political paralysis had seized 
the Republican leaders in Milwaukee. It was the year 
of the second campaign of General Grant for the presi- 
dency of the United States, Horace Greeley, the talented 
but eccentric editor of the New York Tribune, being his 
opponent for the high office. As the campaign pro- 
gressed Mr. Payne became restless at the inactivity which 
prevailed in his home city and he invited several of his 
friends to meet at his office, to consult if it were not the 
duty of the young men to work together systematically 
and vigorously to save the Republican party in Milwau- 
kee from annihilation. The outgrowth of this confer- 
ence was the formation of the Young Men's Republican 
Club — an organization destined to become of great politi- 
cal influence. Mr. DeWitt Davis presided at the initial 
meeting of the Club; Mr. Charles L. Peirce was the first 
president, Mr. Payne the secretary, Captain Irving M. 
Bean the chairman of the executive committee. Other of 
the very early members were Mr. Henry Fink, Mr. Robert 
Hill, Mr. Louis Sholes, Mr. Akerley Townsend, Mr. 
Frederick W. Payne, Mr. Lemuel Ellsworth, Mr. David 
Vance, Air. Winslow A. Nowell and Mr. John M. Ewing. 
The objects of the Club were to dispel the lethargy in the 
ranks of the party, to bring out the full Republican vote 
in the election then imminent and to spread abroad such 
documents and other literature as should constitute an 
apostatizing propaganda. Milwaukee was not then a 
Republican city — the trend of sentiment was intensely 



Early Elections 25 

Democratic. To overcome this sentiment, to convert the 
individual voters by the leaven of argument and instruc- 
tion working through the inert or opposing mass — these 
results the Club hoped to accomplish. In this work Mr. 
Payne was the active, ruling spirit; the ceaseless, untiring 
plodder. 

The result of the presidential election of 1872 in Wis- 
consin was in favor of General Grant, by a majority over 
Mr. Greeley of 18,515 votes — a large majority in those 
days of even party strength. Along with this success 
came a Republican majority in the legislature of Wiscon- 
sin, insuring the re-election of Mr. Timothy O. Howe to 
the senate of the United States, an event which took place 
January 21, 1873, an< ^ was t0 De of great moment to Mr. 
Payne. In Milwaukee county the result of the fall elec- 
tion of 1872 was a majority against General Grant of 
3,171 votes — a number showing how gigantic was Mr. 
Payne's self-imposed task of converting Milwaukee into 
a Republican county. That he succeeded fully in this 
task before he laid his armor off, no Democrat will deny. 

The activities of the Club during the campaign of 
1872 had been so promising that Mr. Matthew H. Car- 
penter, who was then serving his first term in the senate 
of the United States, insisted that the organization, in- 
stead of disbanding as had been contemplated, should 
become permanent. Moreover, he declared his purpose to 
strengthen it in every way within his power and as a token 
of his good will he in November, 1872, tendered to Mr. 
Payne, then twenty-nine years of age, the position of 
postmaster of Milwaukee. 

Early in 1872 Mr. Payne had established himself as an 
insurance agent at Number 17 Newhall House block, 



26 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

where he was connected more or less intimately with Air. 
Benjamin M. Weil* and where both gathered around 
them a profitable clientele. Therefore Mr. Payne, although 
flattered by the offer of an influential federal position, 
had the courage to decline it and to continue his occupa- 
tion. This occupation he continued at the same place 
until, early in 1876, the offer of the post office was again 
made to him and accepted. 

This renewal offer grew out of the bitterness which 
had been engendered in the Republican ranks during the 
contest in the legislature of 1875 over tne election of a 
successor to Mr. Carpenter in the Senate. The defeat of 
Mr. Carpenter as his own successor, which occurred, was 
very disheartening to his friends in Milwaukee who con- 
stituted ninety per cent, of the Republicans there. Mr. 
Angus Cameron having been elected February 3, 1875, 
Senator Howe tendered unsolicited the Milwaukee post 
office to Mr. Payne as one of Mr. Carpenter's most zeal- 
ous, active and trusted friends. Concerning Senator 
Howe's offer Mr. Payne himself stated later, "If I did not 
take it, it would go to some one who had been identified 
with the opponents of Mr. Carpenter. Believing that 
such a result would prove a most disastrous calamity to 
the party organization in Milwaukee I somewhat reluc- 
tantly consented to take the place. This is how 1 came 
to be postmaster." 

He was then a little more than thirty-two years of age. 

*Mr. Weil died in Milwaukee, October 24, 1001, aged fifty-one 
years. 



The Milwaukee Post Office 27 



CHAPTER V 



Zbt ^iltoaukec Post miict 

Mr. Payne was appointed postmaster of Milwaukee 
as successor to Mr. Samuel C. West, on the fourth day 
of February, 1876, his commission bearing the signatures 
of President Grant and of Mr. Marshall Jewell, post- 
master-general. Upon the expiration of his term of four 
years there was an attempt made by some political en- 
emies to discredit him and to cast odium upon his man- 
agement of the office. However, his reappointment was 
asked by the most influential business men of both parties, 
headed by Mr. Alexander Mitchell. Moreover, his record 
at the office of the postmaster-general in Washington was 
of the highest. He was recommissioned for four years 
on the twenty-ninth day of January, 1880, his commission 
being authenticated by President Hayes and by Mr. David 
M. Key, postmaster-general. He was confirmed by the 
Senate without opposition. On the fifth day of Febru- 
ary, 1884, he was reappointed for a term of four years, 
his commission being signed by President Arthur and by 
Mr. Walter 0. Gresham, postmaster-general. But these 
four years of service were not permitted to elapse. A 
notice, dated May 31, 1885, from President Cleveland 
suspended Air. Payne from office "in accordance with the 
terms of the 1768th section of the Revised Statutes of 
the United States" — a section clothing the president with 



28 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

such suspensory power during the interim of Congress. 
The cause of Mr. Payne's removal was, of course, his 
"pernicious activity" as a "politician." 

His successor in the post office was Mr. George H. 
Paul. 

When Mr. Payne, in February, 1876, entered upon 
the duties of his office, its entire business was accommo- 
dated on the main floor of the Government building, 
which then stood on the northwest corner of Wisconsin 
and Milwaukee Streets, the site of the present W r ells 
Building. Before his service closed, the office occupied 
in addition the entire basement and a portion of the sec- 
ond story as well. Besides this, to keep pace with the 
growing needs of the city, Mr. Payne caused five sub- 
stations to be provided, two of them fully equipped post 
offices, doing a large business, and he was providing for 
two other sub-stations when his decapitation occurred. 
The revenue of the Milwaukee post office for the year 
1875 was $136,450; for the year ending June 30, 1883, 
it was $257,1 15 and for the year ending June 30, 1884, it 
was $244,941 — a decrease clue to reduction in rates of 
postage. In 1876 twenty-six letter carriers were em- 
ployed; in 1884 there were forty-four. In 1876 the busi- 
ness portion of the city together with a limited portion of 
the residence district had mail delivered but twice daily, 
while large sections of the outskirts were entirely with- 
out the service of the carriers. In 1885 the business dis- 
tricts were served four and five times daily and an extra 
delivery made at nine o'clock in the evenings to the hotels 
and newspaper offices, while there was no part of the city 
so remote as not to be reached by the carriers, and the 
more thickly settled districts received mail three times 



The Milwaukee Post Office 29 

daily. Under Mr. Payne the post office was kept open 
for the delivery of mail and for the sale of stamps until 
nine o'clock at night and for money-order business until 
six o'clock in the evening, and arrangement was made 
with the local banks to receive money-orders and postal 
notes on deposit. The money-order department increased 
from 67,857 transactions involving $2,490,064 in 1876 to 
162,191 transactions involving $5,084,559 in 1884. The 
registry department increased from the handling of 45,- 
204 pieces in 1876 to the handling of 266,993 pieces in 
1884. 

The presentation of these dry statistics must not be 
thought aimless. These details and figures are useful if 
they show that a man bearing the opprobrious name of 
"politician" may still be able to attend to an important 
government position intelligently and conscientiously and 
adapt the business of that position to the ever increasing 
needs of a thriving, growing community.* 

On May 30, 1885, the evening before his retirement 
from the post office, an address was presented to Mr. 
Payne by the one hundred and six employes of the post 
office. This address was prepared by a committee of their 
number — Mr. Daniel W. Fowler, assistant postmaster, 
Mr. George A. McGarigle, superintendent of city delivery, 
and Mr. Jerome B. Johnson,* superintendent of mails — 
and was read to Mr. Payne by Mr. Fowler in the presence 
of the entire clerical and carrier force of the office. As 



*For the early history and growth of the Milwaukee post office 
consult an article in the Evening Wisconsin, Milwaukee, October 22, 
1879- 

♦These three gentlemen are still living and Messrs. Fowler and 
Johnson are still in service at the Milwaukee post office. 



30 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

this address discloses the sentiments with which Mr. 
Payne had inspired his subordinates during the nine years 
of his regime, it is here preserved : 

Mr. Henry C. Payne : 

The assistants and employes of the Milwaukee post office, who 
have been associated with you while you have held the office of 
postmaster, for a part or all of your term of public service, cannot 
permit the occasion to pass without some expression of their appre- 
ciation of the kindness and courtesy which they have uniformly re- 
ceived at your hands. 

They had desired to unite in the presentation of a suitable 
memento, which might be retained in after years in evidence of their 
unfeigned regard and esteem, but being advised that your wishes 
would be best consulted by the abandonment of this purpose, they 
are left only the alternative of joining in a communication, which 
you are asked to receive — as you doubtless will — in the same kindly 
spirit that dictates it. Such a communication may seem to those who 
do not appreciate the sentiment that prompts it, an empty and un- 
meaning formaity, but you will not so regard it. The relations 
which have so long existed between us, the interest which you have 
always taken in each and all of your subordinates, and the encourage- 
ment and aid which you have given us in the endeavor to render the 
Milwaukee post office an efficient and acceptable agent of the people 
of the city, will enable you to understand the feeling which seeks 
expression in these lines. 

It is proper for us to certify to the many improvements made 
by you in every branch of the service, in the additional conveniences 
given to the public, in the extension of the postal facilities to all 
parts of the city, in the more frequent delivery of the mails, and in 
every way keeping the service up to the highest standard, not only 
in its relations to the public, but in the improved methods of doing 
business inside the office. And it is gratifying to know that your 
administration has merited the warmest commendation of the Post 
Office Department, and received the approval of the business com- 
munity and the public in general. 

The severing of such relations, personal and official, after so 
long a term of service, occasions us unfeigned sorrow, and we part 
with you with the cordial wish for your future happiness and pros- 
perity. 

It is unnecessary to say more, but you are at liberty to read 
between the lines a warmth of kindly sentiment and affection which 
formal phrases but inadequately express. 



T HE Mi LW A 1 1 K !•: I : I \ >ST O I" F I C E 3 1 

To these kindly expressions the retiring postmaster re- 
plied al great length, reviewing his administration, notic- 
ing the growth of the office and of its business since 1876 
and declaring that the loyalty and fidelity of the employes 
in the office materially assisted in the success which had 
been achieved. Mr. Payne's reply closed with this lan- 
guage : 

In parting with you, it would be useless for me to say that I do 
so with regret. Associations lasting during a period of ten years, 
uniformly pleasant as ours have been, cannot be severed without a 
pang; and yet my chief sorrow comes from the knowledge that my 
retirement may mean to many of you loss of place after many years 
of faithful, efficient service — a service which in a measure unfits you 
for other avocations. 

The operations of the civil service law should protect many of 
you; and I trust that the time is not far distant when the tenure of 
clerks and subordinate employes of the government may be entirely 
freed from the domain of party strife, and their places be absolutely 
secure so long as they render satisfactory service. 

For my successor I entertain the kindliest feelings and the high- 
est respect. He enters upon the discharge of the duties of the office 
under peculiar and trying circumstances. I bespeak for him the same 
generous support which you have accorded me. It is due you all to 
say that never during my ten years' service have I been deprived of a 
single hour's sleep or passed an anxious day on account of fears that 
any of you were betraying my confidence. If my successor can say 
as much at the close of his official term he may indeed esteem himself 
a fortunate man. 

In retiring to private life I carry with me nothing but the pleas- 
antest memories of our long association; and I tender you my most 
heartfelt thanks for the many kindly expressions, not only contained 
in your communication, but manifested to me personally, always. 

A few paragraphs in these closing words require 
special comment. Reference is made to his remarks as 
above quoted, upon tenure of office during good behavior. 
Air. Payne is usually pointed to as the chief exponent of 
the "spoils" system, the champion believer in removal 
from office in order to reward party service. And there 
is foundation for the opinion that during his early in- 



32 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



cumbency of the post office he had no sympathy with the 
principles of the civil service law as later enacted. He 
was then a strong party man. In reply to some public 
criticism upon a removal he had made, he printed a card 
not long after his appointment in which he stated, "I pre- 
fer giving employment to Republicans, other things being 
equal," "As long as I am postmaster, I shall employ only 
Republicans if I can find those that are competent." 

Bold and strong as is this language, it is well to be- 
lieve that a wise man changes his views if he finds them 
wrong. Certain it is that Mr. Payne's later history would 
justify the opinion that he had at least modified these 
views. On January 16, 1883, Congress passed the first 
law for the regulation of the civil service.* 

For almost seven years therefore there had been no 
check upon Postmaster Payne's control of his employes, 
to discharge them at will. Of the twenty-two clerks in 
the office at the time Mr. Payne took possession in Feb- 
ruary, 1876, ten were still employed when he was re- 
moved. Of the twenty-six letter carriers who were em- 
ployed at the time of Mr. Payne's appointment, fourteen 
served during his entire term. Of the ninety-four per- 
sons, excluding messengers, who were employed in the 
post office when Mr. Payne was removed in the spring of 
1885, twenty-four, as just stated were so employed when 
he was appointed in February, 1876; twenty-nine were 
appointed under civil service rules; five only were new 
appointments made in 1876; three in 1877, five in 1878, 
four in 1879 and one in 1880 when his term was half over. 

Nor can these dry figures be considered pointless if 



*22 Statutes at Large 403. 



The Milwaukee Post Office 33 

they tend to prove that the new "politician" postmaster 
made no wholesale overthrow of the office employes, but 
that on the contrary he accepted and retained the force as 
he received it, that he made new appointments from time 
to time only as necessity or increase of business required 
and that the civil service rules were acted upon unques- 
tioned as the governing rules of the post office. 

But it may be claimed that Mr. Payne made few re- 
movals because he inherited from his predecessor Repub- 
lican employes only, that he received the civil service act 
upon compulsion and that he enforced its mandates grudg- 
ingly. A partial answer to such a claim is that the civil 
service act as passed January 16, 1883, was not obliga- 
tory upon the Milwaukee post office which did not then 
employ fifty clerks. Application by the postmaster was 
necessary in order to make the act applicable. Sixteen 
days after its passage Mr. Payne wrote the following let- 
ter to the postmaster-general, Mr. Timothy O. Howe : 

Milwaukee, January 31. 
Sir: 

I have this day forwarded to the first assistant postmaster- 
general a roster of the clerks employed at this office. If not incon- 
sistent with your views I would respectfully ask that this office be 
placed under the provisions of the civil service bill. 

Yours truly, 

H. C. Payne, P. M. 

Equally significant with this act on his part is the fol- 
lowing: During the spring of 1885 and while the sword 
of removal was threatening his head, his potential influ- 
ence and assistance were employed in securing the intro- 
duction of civil service rules into two important depart- 
ments of the government of the city of Milwaukee. 

In the legislature of Wisconsin in 1885 a bill had been 



34 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

pending for the establishment of a board of fire and police 
commissioners for Milwaukee. Such a bill was an in- 
novation in Wisconsin and its passage was not at all 
relished by that large body of citizens who coveted jobs 
as firemen and policemen. The measure, although it had 
for its sponsors such citizens as Mr. Jerome R. Brigham 
and Mr. Frederick C. Winkler, stood little chance of 
stemming the tide of prejudice until Mr. Payne who had 
had two years' experience with the federal law and who 
knew its value both in the betterment to the service and 
in the freedom from importunity which resulted from it, 
readily gave his time and influence to its support. The 
result was, through his argument and persuasion, the en- 
actment of the bill into law.* Although repeated efforts 
have been made to amend it into weakness all these 
attempts have failed. The present admirable efficiency 
of both these departments is directly ascribable to the 
benevolent features of this law, whose passage was due to 
the influence of one claimed not to be a believer in its 
fundamental principles. 

That Mr. Payne consistently and intelligently sup- 
ported and upheld the Civil Service Law when he reached 
Washington, the busiest theatre of its operations, will 
amply appear ere this biography closes. 



*It was approved by the governor April II, 1885, and is known 
as Chapter 378 of the Laws of 1885. 



The Milwaukee Club Dinner 35 



CHAPTER VI 



C&e S^tltoaukee Club Dinner 

About a fortnight after Mr. Payne's retirement from 
the post office, on June 16, 1885, a complimentary dinner 
to him and to Captain Irving M. Bean* took place at the 
Milwaukee Club. The invitation, dated May 28, 1885, 
proceeded from Mr. Richard Guenther, of Oshkosh, who 
then represented the Sixth Wisconsin District in the 
House of Representatives, and the compliment so far as 
Air. Payne was concerned was in recognition of the ex- 
cellent record he had made as a public official and the 
valuable services he had rendered to the Republican party 
for many years. The dinner was largely attended, the 
company including Senator Philetus Sawyer, all the Re- 
publican congressmen of Wisconsin except one, and other 
prominent members of the party scattered about the state. 

Mr. Edward Sanderson acted as the toastmaster. The 
response by Mr. Payne to Mr. Sanderson's introduction 
reviewed his own relations with the Republican party 
from the time of the foundation of the Young Men's 
Republican Club in 1872, and gave a history of its triumph. 

*Captain Bean had been Collector of internal revenue for the 
Milwaukee district and had also been removed by President Cleve- 
land. He is mentioned by Senator John C. Spooner as "the scholarly, 
refined gentleman, of many accomplishments, purity of character, and 
exceptionally bright record as a public servant." His tender tribute 
to the memory of his friend Henry, which now lies before me. dis- 
closes the warmth of the sympathy between these two longtime 
friends. Captain Bean is still living in Milwaukee. 



36 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

He mentioned his fellow warriors in the different political 
contests — those who had died, those who had retired from 
warfare, those who were still wearing their armor. His 
words of advice at the close of his address emphasize 
what was his idea of a political combat — to bombard the 
enemy's voters with arguments through speakers and 
documents — the campaign of individual education. These 
were his words : 

It has seemed to me at times that we did not adopt the wisest 
and hest methods in the conduct of our political campaigns. We 
wait until the last moment and then rush into the contest unprepared, 
employing crude, and oftentimes the least effective material to ac- 
complish the desired results, relying upon arguments and literature 
ill adapted to the purpose. How much better it would be to present 
our arguments to the people continuously and systematically when 
the heat of the campaign is not on them, at which time they believe 
little if anything of what they hear or read, but are governed by 
prejudice and passion. 

Steps should be taken now to lay the ground-work, not only of 
the campaign of 1886, but of the great struggle of 1888. 

In severing my official relations, my chief regret has been that 
it terminates my associations so long and pleasantly maintained with 
my official colleagues. We have ever dwelt in harmony, and I shall 
ever cherish the years in which we have dwelt together in the official 
household, as the pleasantest of my life. And to you, my political 
associates, what shall I say? I have sometimes felt that the posi- 
tion which I have held in the party has been a most thankless one; 
but your presence here to-night, and the many kind and flattering 
words spoken, tell me it is not so. Our party leaders throughout 
the state in ever} town and village are among the brightest and best 
of our citizens. T desire to thank them, for myself, and for the State 
Central Committee, for the uniform promptness, zeal and intelligence 
with which they have always responded to the suggestions and re- 
quests of the Committee. And whether in the future I shall remain 
with you, or the necessities of business shall take me from amongst 
you, I shall ever cherish the kindesl and most grateful memories of 
our ten years of service in the interest of the Republican party of 
the State of Wisconsin. 

Invited persons who were unable to attend the dinner 
sent letters in acknowledgment of the official and political 



The Milwaukee Club Dinner 37 

services rendered by Mr. Payne and Captain Bean, min- 
gled with strong expressions of criticism and disapproval 
of the executive act which deprived the public service of 
qualifications like theirs. Letters were read from, among 
others, Governor Jeremiah M. Rnsk, Mr. Angus Cameron, 
Mr. James H. Howe, Mr. Horace A. Taylor and Senator 
John C. Spooner. Two sentences in the letter of the last 
writer deserve quotation, as summing up the political side 
of Mr. Payne's character and especially as showing how 
he was regarded by his political opponents: 

Payne is a born leader of men, possessed of superb ability as an 
organizer, of tireless energy, unwavering in his devotion to the prin- 
ciples of his party, unselfish and self-sacrificing in the personal serv- 
ices he yields to the cause in which he believes. He deserves the 
gratitude of every Republican, as he has won the respect of every 
Democrat who likes a fair fight, and admires an opponent who deals 
hard blows, and takes them in return like a man. 

The closing portion of this quotation furnishes an 
apology for presenting extracts from three letters written 
by political opponents of Mr. Payne and which confirm 
Senator Spooner's opinion that the Democrats liked him. 
The following is from the pen of Mr. Edw r ard C. Wall, 
of Milwaukee: 

Mr. Payne and I differed radically in politics. Several times 
we were actively identified in the management of campaigns on op- 
posite sides, striving with all the energy and ability each of us pos- 
sessed to defeat each other. This, however, did not disturb our 
friendship, neither did the fact that some suspicious adherents of 
our respective parties misconstrued this and criticised it unkindly 
make the slightest difference in our intercourse or social relation. 
The fact is that Mr. Payne and I never discussed politics except as 
gentlemen do in a general way among themselves where they differ. 

While Mr. Payne was a hard fighter and a hard hitter, as well 
as a most resourceful leader politically, he was at the same time 
generous to his political opponent. 



38 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Sir Thomas G. Shaughnessy, now of Montreal, Can- 
ada, thus records his impressions of Mr. Payne as a pub- 
lic man : 

Excepting on one occasion, when I was a supporter of Matt. H. 
Carpenter for the United States Senate, Mr. Payne and I were never 
in accord politically in the early days. He was a Republican leader 
— indeed, to my mind, the leader not only in the Milwaukee district, 
but in the State of Wisconsin, while I was an humble member of 
the Democratic party. 

Shrewd, capable, reserved and an excellent judge of men, Mr. 
Payne was the ideal man for political management. One of his 
most striking characteristics, however, was his unselfishness. He 
played the game for the party and its candidates without apparently 
making any effort for his own preferment. I cannot recollect that 
in my day he was ever a candidate for an elective office. True he 
held the position of postmaster for a time, but in those days politics 
permeated the public departments, and in that position he had oppor- 
tunity to keep in touch with political affairs not onl) r in his own 
district, but throughout a considerable portion of the Northwest. 
His efficiency as a member of the Republican National Committee 
was recognized and appreciated by such men as the late Senator 
Hanna, whom I knew intimately and who frequently spoke in terms 
of admiration and affection of his colleague from Wisconsin on the 
committee. 

When I knew him best I had implicit confidence in Mr. Payne's 
unimpeachable honesty, and during the last quarter of a century every 
word that reached me from any quarter tended to confirm that con- 
viction. His friends knew him as a loyal and devoted friend: his 
foes, and they were only political, recognized his genius for party 
organization and strategy. Henry C. Payne was indeed a citizen 
who brought credit and honour to his state, and whose memory will 
be cherished for generations to come. 

Air. William F. Vilas, of Madison, Wisconsin, Air. 
Payne's predecessor as postmaster-general, in the cabinet 
of President Cleveland, writes at length, and because ex- 
Senator Vilas as a lifelong Democrat knew and appre- 
ciated a worthy opponent, I draw quite extensively from 
his recollections of Mr. Payne: 

He seemingly possessed a natural liking, as well as marked 
natural aptitude, for the management of contests in the political 



The Milwaukee Club Dinner 39 



arena — the enjoyment, doubtless, of the exercise of conscious power. 
I never knew whether it was this native tendency, or devotion to 
personal friends, which first turned him to that field of effort. Cer- 
tainly, one could hardly manifest less of personal ambition or self- 
seeking, although his labors, cares and performances ranged over 
long years and trying controversies, while, as chairman of the State 
Central Committee and state representative in the National Com- 
mittee, his masterful hand was upon the helm of his party, dom- 
inantly in the state and finally almost so in the nation. It was, in- 
deed, but the mortal stroke which unloosed that grasp. 

Probably, no man anywhere ever essayed political or public serv- 
ice without misconception by opponents, and, not uncommonly, by 
many even in party accord. The measure of success is also generally 
the gauge of feeling in antagonism and misjudgment. If Mr. Payne 
encountered it, he not only shared the common fate of public labor, 
but found in it the mark of achievement. Assuredly he won from 
those over whom he secured so many triumphs, the acknowledgment 
due his high ability, keen insight, steadfastness of purpose, with 
genuine, and for the most part also generous, cordiality; and in the 
constancy of his friends not less than the distinction of exalted office 
lies undeniable testimony of the eminence he attained in the estima- 
tion of his fellow men. 

This affords no fitting opportunity to speak of his official labors, 
were I so acquainted with their circumstances as to warrant it. 
The recall of him to which my memory clings with affectionate 
fondness, turns especially to the charms of his personal intercourse. 
His gifts from Nature, bettered by culture, in sunny temperament, 
kindly disposition, frank, open, manly ways, gentle courtesies of 
manner, rendered him ever a delight to the companions he accepted. 
It was like a sunburst through a cloudy sky to happen upon his 
welcoming cheer at meeting a friend ; while his animation, humor, 
bright wit and ready mind, infused by kindness of heart, gave every 
succeeding moment of communion fresh enjoyment. One never 
failed to receive responsive appreciation and with it, keenly discrim- 
inative judgment, of a fact stated or a proposition advanced, whether 
in pleasantry or serious affairs. Nor ever was wanting that essential 
of good fellowship, confidence in his truth and integrity, the ease of 
an absolute security in his fidelity to all the obligations of honor 
in every personal relation. 



40 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



CHAPTER VII 



"S^iltoaukce a Bcpu&lican Countp" 

To explain the frequent references to Mr. Payne's 
political achievements it is necessary to return again to 
the Young Men's Republican Club. As has been stated 
this organization was not permitted to disintegrate in 
1872. Its existence under the name of the Central Re- 
publican Club was perpetuated, with the resolution of 
making Milwaukee county and city Republican in politics. 
It was unable in 1874 to accomplish the defeat of Mr. 
William P. Lynde, Democratic candidate for Congress 
from the Fourth District, although his vote in the county 
was reduced to a majority of 1,404 ballots over Mr. Har- 
rison Ludington. At the state election on November 2, 
1875, the Republicans made herculean efforts to carry the 
state, more particularly because the governorship had 
fallen without good reason into the grasp of the Demo- 
crats in 1872. Governor William R. Taylor w r as a can- 
didate for re-election in 1875 and against him the Republi- 
cans nominated Mr. Harrison Ludington, three times 
elected mayor of the Democratic city of Milwaukee. The 
contest was very exciting and enlisted all the ardor and 
energy of Secretary Payne. When the ballots had been 
counted it was found that Mr. Ludington had carried the 
state by 831 votes over Governor Taylor, but that the re- 
mainder of the Democratic ticket had been elected. The 
county of Milwaukee which, in 1873, Governor Taylor 



"Milwaukee a Republican County" 41 

carried by a majority of 6,379 ballots, polled him a ma- 
jority of but 1,219 votes in 1875 — a loss of 5,160 votes. 
It was a brilliant throng that attended the inauguration 
of Governor Ludington in January, 1876. Mr. Edward 
EC. West,* in a notice about Mr. Payne, writes: 

I was one of a merry party from Milwaukee who attended the 
inaugural ball at the time of the election of Governor Harrison 
Ludington. Mr. Payne seemed to be the bright particular star at 
that time, the director general by common consent. 

The Central Republican Club, managed by its rest- 
less, busy secretary, Mr. Payne, attacked the enemy again 
in the presidential campaign of 1876, rendered ever 
memorable by the contest of Governor Rutherford B. 
Hayes against Mr. Samuel J. Tilden. In the city of 
Milwaukee the Democrats made loud boasts — they would 
carry the city by so large a vote that the Republicans in 
the remainder of the state could not overcome the ma- 
jority. Vain bragging ! The Democrats carried the city 
by a meagre majority of 1,381 votes, the county by 2,019 
votes and lost the state by somewhat more than 6,000 
votes. Commenting upon this situation the Milwaukee 
correspondent of the Chicago Times wrote to his paper: 

That the Democratic majority in this intensely Democratic city 
and county has been reduced from the sublime to the comparatively 
ridiculous in the way it has been is one of the wonderful feats of 
the day and Henry C. Payne is chief conjuror. 

Upon the conclusion of this presidential campaign it 
was deemed wise to form a new organization of the Cen- 
tral Republican Club which should be more fairly repre- 



*Mr. West was the son of Mr. Payne's predecessor as postmaster 
and served as the head of the money-order department during all 
the administration of .Mr. Payne and a portion of that of Mr. Paul. 
Mr. West's summary of the character of his chief, Mr. Payro 
most interesting. 



42 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

sentative than the Club of the growing- Republican party. 
At its annual meeting in the winter of 1876-7 a committee 
consisting of Mr. Payne, Mr. Albert B. Geilfuss and Mr. 
John H. Manschot was appointed to report a new perma- 
nent plan of organization. This committee reported, and 
the Club adopted, a plan for the formation of the Central 
Committee of the Republican party of the city and county 
of Milwaukee — a lengthy name popularly shortened into 
the Committee of One Hundred. Of this committee Air. 
William E. Smith was the president and Mr. Payne the 
secretary. The object of the committee was single — to 
conduct the Republican campaigns in the city and county 
of Milwaukee. Not long after its formation Mr. Ed- 
ward Sanderson succeeded Mr. Smith as chairman of the 
committee, owing to Mr. Smith's election as governor, 
and Mr. Payne added to his duties those of secretary and 
treasurer of the State Central Committee. 

The Committee of One Hundred tested its mettle in the 
gubernatorial campaign in November, 1877, the con- 
testants being Mr. William E. Smith and Judge James A. 
Mallory — the latter the Democratic nominee. Judge Mal- 
lory carried the city by 222 votes, the county by 545 votes 
and lost the state by more than six thousand votes. In 
the spring of 1878 Mr. Casper M. Sanger, Republican, 
lost the mayoralty by but 343 votes — the political change 
was surely coming ! 

When the next election for governor occurred in the 
spring of 1879, Governor Smith was a candidate for re- 
election, his Democratic opponent being Mr. James G. 
Jenkins. Governor Smith had a majority in the state of 
25,494 votes, in the city of Milwaukee of 2,152 votes, 
and in the county of Milwaukee, of 2,360 votes. In the 



'Milwaukee a Republican County" 43 



spring of 1880 Mr. Thomas H. Brown, Republican, was 
chosen mayor of Milwaukee, by a majority of 3,388 votes. 
The change had come ! 

It was no unacceptable reward to Mr. Payne for his 
meritorious party services that he was a delegate to the 
National Republican convention which sat in Chicago in 
the summer of 1880. In this convention the delegation 
from Wisconsin did the decisive work that nominated 
Mr. James A. Garfield. For thirty-three ballots the six- 
teen votes of the Wisconsin delegation had been cast for 
Mr. James G. Blaine. A solitary delegate from Penn- 
sylvania had been voting consistently for Mr. Garfield 
upon every ballot. On the thirty-fourth ballot the Wis- 
consin delegation, largely through the influence of Mr. 
Payne, switched its sixteen votes to Mr. Garfield and his 
nomination followed. 

\v that Mr. Garfield was nominated it was neces- 
sary for Wisconsin to do its share in electing him. The 
State Central Committee and the Committee of One Hun- 
dred, with Mr. Payne at the helm of both, undertook the 
task. In this presidential contest Mr. Payne reduced the 
business of campaigning to an exact science in the city 
of Milwaukee. A secretary and a set of books were the 
preliminary paraphernalia. Before the campaign opened 
or a speech was made, a thorough street canvass had been 
made in the city, and the name, age and residence of each 
male person obtained, brought to the secretary and alpha- 
betized in the books. In addition was entered the status 
of each, whether naturalized, whether registered, whether 
about to cast his first vote, whether Republican. Democrat 
or doubtful. Proper letters were mailed to the members 
of each class. The unregistered were reminded of their 



44 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

political duty, the unnaturalized were instructed how to 
become citizens, the young and the doubtful were fur- 
nished with appropriate political nutriment, the Republi- 
cans confirmed in the faith, the Democrats warned of the 
error of their ways. The result was that the unregis- 
tered showed their gratitude to the party that taught them 
their obligation, the unnaturalized went to the Republican 
Central Committee for their citizenship blanks, the young 
men flocked to the Republican standard. Not a voter 
escaped the peering glance of Mr. Payne and his com- 
mittee. So completely and systematically were plans 
carried out that, upon November i, 1880, the day before 
election, a Republican ballot was mailed to every voter 
in the city and so far as possible, in the county, with an 
urgent appeal that it be voted. The result was that Mr. 
Garfield carried the county of Milwaukee by a plurality 
of 3,091 votes, an increase of 5,110 votes over the Hayes 
figures in 1876. Throughout the state Mr. Garfield had 
a plurality of 29,770 votes over the Democratic aspirant, 
General Hancock. The Evening Wisconsin, scanning 
the complete returns of the state, was moved to explain 
on November 15, 1880, that Milwaukee is now "the ban- 
ner Republican county in Wisconsin." 

It should have been stated a little earlier that Mr. 
Payne became in t88o, then being thirty-seven years of 
age, a member of the Republican National Committee. 
It may here be added, and it will be amplified later, that in 
that capacity he participated actively in five presidential 
campaigns and that in the last three of these he was a 
member of the executive committee of the National Com- 
mittee. 

One of the features of Mr. Payne's practice of poli- 



"Milwaukee a Republican County" 45 

tics was honesty in dealing with all voters. He believed 
in a bold, exact, straightforward declaration of party- 
principles and a square and open fight to win on the basis 
of that declaration. Nothing illustrates this attitude 
better than the mayoralty campaign in 1884. In the 
Republican nominating convention that year, held March 
28, 1884, the declaration of principles, which Mr. Payne 
assisted to frame and which was adopted on March 30, 
1884, asserted that the Republicans were in favor of a 
more rigid regulation of the liquor traffic, of the payment 
of higher licenses by the saloons, and of the removal of 
the fire and police departments from the domain of poli- 
tics. Brave as this stand was in a city like Milwaukee, 
it was taken without hesitation and the campaign fought 
out under Mr. Payne's leadership with those issues con- 
stantly thrust into prominence. Mr. Emil Wallber, 
standing on this platform, was elected mayor of Milwau- 
kee by a plurality of about three thousand votes. To 
show how promises are sometimes kept it should be noted 
that the Republican legislature elected in the fall of 1884 
passed more rigid laws relating to saloons, made enact- 
ments for the submission to different municipalities of 
propositions for higher license fees and, as has already 
been stated, took the fire and police departments of Mil- 
waukee out of politics. 

Here may appropriately be printed a letter to the Mil- 
waukee Sentinel written by Mr. Frederick C. Winkler, of 
Milwaukee, December 28, 1901, at the time of Mr. 
Payne's appointment to the cabinet of President Roose- 
velt. 

It may not be without interest at this time to recall a bit of 
political history. Prior to 1885 it had been the practice in our city 



46 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



for each newly elected mayor, especially when there was a change 
of party, to appoint a new chief of police and of the fire department, 
and then after a few days a long list of dismissals and of the ap- 
pointment of friends of the new man would follow in each depart- 
ment. Bearing in mind that we had annual elections in those days, 
one can readily imagine the Dolly Varden appearance of the record 
so made. In 1884 the Republican city convention met on Wednesday 
in the latter part of March, nominated a ticket with Emil Wallber 
for mayor, and then adjourned till Friday evening. At the ad- 
journed meeting a series of resolutions was reported, among which 
was the following: 

"Resolved, That we are in favor of taking the police and fire 
departments and the management of the public schools out of the 
domain of politics so that the terms of office of policemen, firemen, 
school officials and teachers shall not depend on the results of each 
succeeding election, but rather upon faithfulness and efficiency in the 
discharge of their duties." 

At this time Henry C. Payne was secretary and treasurer of the 
Republican State Central Committee. Edward Sanderson was its 
chairman. The two were on the closest terms of political intimacy. 
Both were deeply interested in city affairs and active, leading men 
in our local politics. Both were present at that meeting. Mr. San- 
derson was a delegate in the convention and a member of the com- 
mittee reporting the resolutions. The adjourned convention turned 
into a mass meeting. The resolutions and the nominations were 
enthusiastically ratified. I do not know the authorship of the reso- 
lution quoted, but I do know that it had Mr. Payne's very hearty 
indorsement. 

When the next session of the legislature met, it was he who saw 
to the preparation of a bill and pushed it with his wonted zeal. I 
think J. R. Brigham drew it. I remember being called into a con- 
ference about it when he was present. Mr. Payne had it introduced 
and looked after its fate in the legislature. I remember well my 
meeting him while it was pending and asking him about the prospects 
of its passage, and his answer. It was this: "The Republican party 
has promised the people of Milwaukee to take the police and fire 
departments out of politics ; we have a Republican legislature, and I 
will see to it that the promise is redeemed." It was redeemed. The 
bill was passed, and it was one of the most valuable, if not the most 
valuable, charter reform that the legislature of Wisconsin has given 
to the city of Milwaukee. 

Mr. Payne has never posed in the special role of a reformer, 
but he has always stood for decency and efficiency in every branch 
of the public service. In his administration of the Milwaukee post 
office this was fully exemplified, and the civil service law was im- 
partially enforced. 



"Milwaukee a Republican County" 47 

During - the presidential campaign of 1884 Mr. Horace 
A. Taylor was chairman of the Republican State Central 
Committee. The secretary and treasurer was Mr. Payne, 
and the headquarters of the committee at the corner of 
Wisconsin and Jefferson Streets, in Milwaukee, the cor- 
ner now ornamented by the Hotel Pfister. In this cam- 
paign, in which Mr. James G. Blaine and Mr. Grover 
Cleveland were the candidates, the prospect of Republican 
success was not encouraging. There was much disaffec- 
tion; there were many "mugwumps;" there were green- 
back voters and prohibitionist voters. The same system 
was pursued throughout the state, so far as practicable in 
so large an area, as was pursued in Milwaukee county 
in the campaign four years before. Mr. Payne was keen- 
ly ambitious to win this contest in Wisconsin and success 
crowned his efforts. Mr. Blaine received some sixteen 
thousand more votes than Mr. Cleveland. 

But Mr. Payne's victory was barren; the Democrats 
carried the electoral college, Mr. Cleveland became presi- 
dent March 4, 1885, and in a year Mr. Payne was evicted 
from the office of postmaster of Milwaukee because he was 
an "offensive partisan." 



48 Hexry Clay Payne : A Life 



CHAPTER VIII 



business; again 

Upon Mr. Payne's retirement from the Milwaukee 
post office he was far from being a man of means. Dur- 
ing his tenure in the federal building his salary had been 
his only means of livelihood, for his political services 
while they brought him some honor and much odium, 
accumulated for him no wealth. While casting about for 
a permanent avocation he became interested with Mr. 
William H. Bradley and Mr. Wallace G. Collins in the 
development of Northern Wisconsin. He was largely in- 
strumental in securing the legislation which led to the 
settlement and uplift of that section of the state, particu- 
larly in obtaining legislative permission to erect a large 
dam at Tomahawk, Wisconsin/ 1 " 

Mr. Collins, above mentioned, residing in 1887 in 
Milwaukee, now of Chicago, thus writes concerning Mr. 

Payne's land and timber enterprises: 

Mr. Payne, with others, determined the location of the town of 
Tomahawk, believing that the proximity of the dam would encour- 
age sawmill concerns to locate at that point. Mr. Payne was selected 
to take charge of the disposal of the town lots. The discussion in 
the legislature over the installation of the Tomahawk dam had ad- 
vertised the place very extensively and it was decided to offer the 
lots at auction. This was in 1887. Mr. Payne sold $115,000 worth 
of lots the first day. 

When it was decided to extend the line north from Tomahawk, 



*See Chapter 346, Laws of Wisconsin for 1887, published April 
22, 1887. 



Business Again 49 



the town site of Minocqua was secured by us. It had been occupied 
for nearly 200 years as the site of an Indian village. The name 
Minocqua was adopted after a number of interviews with the Indians 
and was the name of the old chief of the tribe. Mr. Payne at first 
thought the Indian equivalent for the name Tomahawk would be 
appropriate, but it was too long. He then thought to name the town 
after the wife of the chief. He spent the best part of a day trying 
to spell her name in English on pieces of birch bark, but after 
shortening it in every way possible, he found it would take thirty- 
six letters at the least calculation, and he finally gave it up. 

He arranged with the Indians to remove to the reservation, and 
the town site of Minocqua was put into Mr. Payne's hands and sold 
by him. The first child born in Minocqua was given a town lot and 
each church denomination was presented with a site for a church. 

These ventures brought Mr. Payne in contact with the timber 
enterprises in Northern Wisconsin in which he at one time engaged 
quite extensively in connection with myself and other parties. I 
was also associated with Mr. Payne in several other land transac- 
tions in the city of .Milwaukee and in Chicago and elsewhere. I 
always found him a man of most excellent judgment and painstaking 
care and of the strictest integrity in the handling of all the interests 
in which I was associated with him. 

During the trips we made together to the wilds of Northern 
Wisconsin in furtherance of our various projects, I learned to know 
Mr. Payne in a way that a man can only be known in roughing it in 
camp life. Opportunity was afforded to discuss many men and 
measures and I was deeply impressed with the breadth of his views 
and the fairness of his judgment. The friendship formed during this 
period lasted until his death. As an evidence of my confidence in 
Mr. Payne, I may say that at one time he held for me either in his 
name or as trustee, all of my interests in eight different companies. 

But, to speak properly of what became his daily rou- 
tine of business, it is necessary to be once more remin- 
iscent. 

At a meeting of the Fortnightly Club, Milwaukee, held 
July 15, 1875, at the office of Mr. William W. Wight in 
the Insurance Building,* Mr. Elisha Gray, of Chicago, 
read a paper bearing a new name about a new subject, the 



*The Old Insurance Building at the northwest corner of Wis- 
consin Street and Broadway. 



50 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

telephone. By means of wires stretched about this office, 
the hall and adjoining - offices, Mr. Gray illustrated and 
explained the then astonishing- discovery in the transmis- 
sion of sound. These were the first experiments with the 
telephone in Wisconsin.* 

Among the members of the Fortnightly Club present 
during these experiments was Mr. Charles H. Haskins, 
then representing in Milwaukee the Northwestern Tele- 
graph Company. Naturally interested in electrical sub- 
jects the telephone appealed to Mr. Haskins and it was 
through him that the telephone was practically introduced 
into Milwaukee. In 1879 ne was tne a g ent °f tne Bell 
Telephone Company with an office with the Northwestern 
Telegraph Company at Number 411 Broadway. By 1880 
the Milwaukee Telephone exchange was established at 
the same place, Mr. Haskins being the president. In 
1882 the Wisconsin Telephone Company succeeded the 
Milwaukee Telephone Company, the same president con- 
tinuing. In the new corporation Milwaukee capital had 
the majority interest, and the American Bell Telephone 
Company represented by Mr. Charles H. Haskins held 
minority holdings. Mr. Benjamin K. Miller. Mr. Ed- 
ward H. Brodhead and Mr. Frank G. Bigelow were the 
earliest local stock owners outside of the Haskins in- 
terests. Then followed closely Mr. Payne, Mr. Charles 
Ray, Mr. Charles F. Pfister, Mr. Henry F. Whitcomb, 
Mr. Charles G. Stark and Mr. John D. McLeod. Mr. 
Payne became the vice-president of the Wisconsin Tele- 
phone Company, October 5, 1886, and the president Feb- 



*I find no patent issued upon a "telephone," so-called, until No- 
vember, 1877. 



Business Again 51 



rnary 1 1, 1889. This latter position he occupied for more 
than ten years, resigning May lj, 1899, when his interest 
with those of other Milwaukee owners was sold to the 
Erie Telephone and Telegraph Company then operating 
in Minnesota and Michigan. During the ten years of 
Mr. Payne's administration, the plant of the Telephone 
Company was largely increased and extended, and the 
concern made prosperous. It was he who selected the 
site for the general offices of the Company at Number 424 
Broadway, and supervised the erection of the building. 
In it the executive rooms were separated from the noisy 
operating quarter. It is interesting to notice that the 
same administrative qualities, shrewdness, good judgment 
and business sense, which had been and were his char- 
acteristics in the management of political campaigns were 
employed by him in directing the affairs of this growing 
corporation. 

Mr. John D. McLeod, formerly general manager and 
now one of the vice-presidents of the Wisconsin Telephone 
Company, was closely associated with Mr. Payne in tele- 
phone work and has this to say of his impressions of his 
superior in office: 

In the early days of the Telephone Company, during its forma- 
tive period, his strong hand successfully piloted the business through 
many unusual difficulties. As a monopoly, it was sorely beset by 
the prejudices of the public it was created to serve, by the lack of 
capital for its expanding needs and by mischievous legislation, and 
was in many ways dependent for success upon the masterful powers 
which Mr. Payne brought to it, and that skill in affairs which in- 
spired confidence in all his undertakings. 

Mr. Payne was petty in nothing. I bear witness to no sign of 
impatience in my fifteen years of intimate observation, though provo- 
cation was frequent and dire. 

His master mind, the magnetic qualities of the man, the sim- 
plicity and generosity of his nature and an even measure of courtesy 



52 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

to the great and little alike, marked him a conspicuous personality. 
These endowments with all the lovable personal traits following in 
their train endeared him to his intimates, and justify his national 
fame. 

We have thought him as great a general in the "Arts of Peace" 
as Grant in the "Arts of War," and have felt that the tribute of 
Congress to Grant might as fitly memorialize the achievements of 
Henry C. Payne : 

"Patient of toil, serene amidst alarms, 
Inflexible in faith, invincible in arms." 

A number of matters miscellaneous in character be- 
longing to the last fourteen years of Mr. Payne's life may 
properly be grouped here that they may not interrupt the 
march of more important events pressing upon the later 
pages. 

In the year 1890 Mr. Payne became a director of the 
First National Bank of Milwaukee as successor to Mr. 
George Dyer. This position he held until his death. 

In about the same year he became a director of the 
Milwaukee Gas Light Company and occupied this posi- 
tion until the time of his removal to Washington. 

On October 1, 1890, he became a director of the Mil- 
waukee and Northern Railroad Company, and was the 
president of that corporation from November 12, 1890, 
until his death. This position was, however, little more 
than a sinecure as all the property of the corporation, in- 
cluding its road, was transferred August 28, 1893, to the 
Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company. 

On December 8, 1892, with Air. Thomas W. Spence, 
of Milwaukee, and certain officials of the just named 
railroad company, he formed the North Milwaukee In- 
vestment Company, for the purpose of dealing in lots in 
that suburb. A number of subdivisions in North. Mil- 



Business Agaix 53 



waukee are named for Mr. Payne, while the principal 
street, Villard Avenue, attests his admiration for his 
friend, the financier, Mr. Henry Villard. 

Mr. Payne was the president of the Fox River Valley 
Electric Railway Company, with headquarters at Apple- 
ton, Wisconsin, from its organization until about the year 
1900, when it was swallowed up as a connecting link in 
some larger line. 

When the convention of the American Street Railway 
Association was held in Milwaukee, in 1893, Mr. Payne 
was chosen the president of that body in recognition of 
his long years of activity and prominence in street railway 
matters. 

On June 26, 1894, he was elected a member of the Old 
Settlers' Club of Milwaukee, to which he was entitled on 
account of a residence of twenty-five years in that city. 

Mr. Payne was a member of the Pennsylvania His- 
torical Society, and on December 8, 1898, was elected a 
life member of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. 
In the museum of the latter society is now preserved the 
chair which he occupied while a member of the cabinet of 
President Roosevelt and which in 1905 was presented to 
the Society by Mrs. Payne. The history of the chair is 
shown by the following letter : 

Washington, November 14, 1902. 
Hon. Henry C. Payne, 

Postmaster-General of the United States, 
Washington, D. C. 
Mr. Postmaster-General : It gives me pleasure to send you 
one of the chairs formerly used by the Cabinet at Cabinet meetings 
at the White House. 

The chair was purchased in General Grant's time and has been 
in use till the present time. Owing to the construction of a separate 
office building equipped with entirely new furniture, this chair was 



54 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

no longer needed for the purpose for which it was purchased, and is 
therefore, by permission of the President, sent to you as a souvenir. 

Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 

Theo. A. Bingham, 

Colonel U. S. Army. 

Mr. Payne was one of the early members of the So- 
ciety of Colonial Wars for the State of Wisconsin, claim- 
ing membership by virtue of his descent from Mr. Moses 
Pain of Braintree and from the latter's son, Stephen Pain. 
From 1902 until his death Mr. Payne was the Deputy 
Governor General of the Society. No one who attended 
the dinner given by that Society on December 21, 1901, 
will forget the feeling and eloquent address of Mr. Payne 
to his fellow members. A residence soon to begin in 
Washington was deeply impressing upon his mind the 
urgent need of a disinterested and heaven-inspired 
patriotism. 

On December 16, 1900, Mr. Payne was elected a mem- 
ber of the executive committee of the Indianapolis Mone- 
tary Convention. 

He was likewise the original trustee for Wisconsin of 
the McKinley National Memorial Association, which posi- 
tion he still held at the time of his death. 

For the artistic betterment of the city of his love Mr. 
Payne presented to it the eight stone lions which now 
ornament the approaches to the two bridges over the Light 
House Ravine in Lake Park. Milwaukee. The letter of 
thankful acceptance by the park commissioners is dated 
August 6, 1897. 

The trustees of Milwaukee-Downer College gratefully 
remember Mr. Payne, Mr. Frank G. Bigelow and Mr. 



Business Again 55 



Charles F. Pfister for their joint gift of fifteen hundred 
dollars, which fully equipped the gymnasium of that in- 
stitution. 

It is not amiss to emphasize in this connection that 
Air. Payne was a constant and generous giver. All ob- 
jects aiming at the advancement and improvement of Mil- 
waukee, all public benevolent institutions, and churches of 
any faith, were granted his liberal benefactions. He was 
particularly thoughtful of All Saints' Cathedral, Milwau- 
kee, whose bishop* received his frequent aid for cathedral 
improvements and for church work. 

His assistance was always ready and ample for funds 
for the destitute and distressed, as, for one example, for 
the fund for the sufferers in the Third Ward conflagra- 
tion in Milwaukee, October 28, 1892. 



*Right Reverend Isaac L. Nicholson, the Protestant Episcopal 
Bishop of Milwaukee, who died in that city, October 29, 1906. 



56 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



CHAPTER IX 



Concerning Street Eatltuaps 

Reference has already been made to the insignificant 
condition of the street railways of Milwaukee when Mr. 
Payne first took up his residence in that city. It would 
be unprofitable here to chronicle the tardy processes of 
improvement, both in equipment and in transportation, 
and the gradual growth of independent and partially 
competing corporations operating in different portions of 
the city and suburbs. Let it suffice to observe that in and 
about 1890 the North American Company, a corporation 
of New York, had large stock holdings in Milwaukee 
street railways; that Mr. Payne represented, in Milwaukee, 
those holdings, and that there w T ere then no fewer than 
five different street railway companies, familiarly known 
as horse-railways, in operation. These five were the 
Cream City Railroad Company, of which Mr. Oren E. 
Britt, of Milwaukee, was the president; the Milwaukee 
City Railroad Company, of which Mr. Walter G. Oak- 
man, of New York, was the president; the Milwaukee 
Electric Railway Company, of which Mr. F. E. Hinckley, 
was president; the West Side Railway Company, of 
which Mr. Washington Becker was president, the pioneer 
road in the city to use electricity as a motive power ; and 
the Whitefish Bay Railway Company, of which Mr. Will- 



Concerning Street Railways 57 



iam H. Bradley and Mr. Israel H. Lowry were the chief 
officers, the first road in Milwaukee authorized by ordi- 
nance* to use other than animal power for propulsi in. 

To Mr. Payne's mind the union of these disconnected 
and discordant lines was a matter of great moment, and 
upon his shoulders fell the burden of accomplishing this 
union. To be sure he was not at that time a practical 
street railroad man ; his experience had been along other 
lines, but the general business ability was there, and for 
the purpose of the negotiation which was required for 
such intricate and involved matters he possessed all the 
essential qualities — aggressive energy and tenacity of pur- 
pose tempered by a spirit of conciliation and compromise, 
of amiability and patience. 

On December 22, 1890, the first two above named cor- 
porations had merged and become the Milwaukee Street 
Railway Company, with Mr. Henry Villard,f of New 
York, as the president; Mr. William L. Mason, now of 
Washington, District of Columbia, as auditor, and Mr. 
Payne as vice-president, this being Mr. Payne's first 
prominent connection with street railway affairs. On 
September 29, 1891, the stock of the West Side Railway 
Company was transferred to the North American Com- 
pany, an eastern corporation, in the interest of the Mil- 



*The ordinance was passed June 14, 1886, and required the use 
of animal power on Farwell Avenue and Bradford Street and per- 
mitted the use of steam motors, electricity or magnetism, north of 
the intersection of Bradford Street and Glen Avenue. 

tMr. Villard had been greatly interested in the Northern 
Pacific Railroad, in the Wisconsin Central Railway and in other 
enterprises in the northwest. For his various enterprises he needed 
a holding company to manage his smaller companies, and therefore 
he formed and controlled the North American Company. He be- 
came acquainted with Mr. Payne through his investments in the 
West. 



58 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

waukee Street Railway Company. In 1892 consolidation 
had no further advanced, and there had come into being 
the Milwaukee and Wauwatosa Motor Railway Company 
with Mr. James Petley as the president. During 1892 
Mr. Villard ceased to be president of the Milwaukee 
Street Railway Company and during that year and until 
1895 Mr. Payne exercised the functions of the higher 
office. In 1893 the street railway lines remained as in 
1892, but by January 29, 1894, the last named company 
had absorbed all the strictly city lines — there remaining 
only as separate entities the Whitefish Bay line and the 
Wauwatosa Motor line. In 1895 the consolidation had 
become complete, and there were included in the merger 
companies formed for electric lighting purposes such as 
the Badger Illuminating Company and the Edison Elec- 
tric Illuminating Company, of both of which corporations 
Mr. Edward C. Wall, of Milwaukee, had been the presi- 
dent, and which corporations had in 1891 and in 1890 
sold their property to the Milwaukee Street Railway 
Company. 

But the company thus formed was far from being in 
a flourishing financial condition, and sought in vain for 
the money to pay its debts. Foreclosure proceedings 
were instituted against it May 24, 1895, by the Central 
Trust Company of New York, to which it had mortgaged 
its property on January 29, 1894, for ten million dollars; 
receivers were appointed, to-wit : Mr. Payne and Mr. 
George R. Sheldon, and steps taken to change the lan- 
guid body into a healthy being. Out of this receivership 
arose on January 29, 1896, the corporation now existing 
known as The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light 



Concerning Street Railways 59 

Company. Of this company Mr. William Nelson Crom- 
well, of New York, was president, and Mr. Payne the 
vice-president. 

Prior to the consolidation Mr. Payne's shoulders bore 
the principal weight of the street railroad business. Apart 
from the negotiations for union — for the accomplishment 
of which he deserves great, and the chief, credit — there 
was need to convince the New York capitalists that the 
entire line was worthy of equipment with electricity. The 
passing away of the sluggish and patient mule in favor 
of the tireless trolley is due to his efforts, for he had 
familiarized himself with the results obtained by the subtle 
fluid and foresaw that electricity had come to stay. In- 
deed, as an evidence of his confidence in the future of the 
trolley system it may here be mentioned that he invested 
in Milwaukee street railway stock the proceeds of a 
matured life insurance policy taken out by him in his 
younger days. 

The well-being of the employes of the company was 
a matter of much concern to the interests of the com- 
pany, in the belief of Mr. Payne, apart from considera- 
tions of humanity. Of many of the employes he knew the 
names and the residences, and their condition as to mar- 
riage and offspring; and increases of salaries — which came 
more than once without solicitation — were based upon the 
domestic situation of the men. Indeed, a plan which al- 
lowed the participation of the employes in the company's 
profits, and tied them to the company's interests, by per- 
mitting them to purchase the company's stock at an ad- 
vantageous figure was worked out and put into effect after 
the strike, which occurred in the spring of 1896. 



60 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

This strike broke out after the consolidation of the 
different companies into The Milwaukee Electric Railway 
and Light Company and had its formative period and 
preparations during a trip which Mr. Payne with his wife 
had taken to Europe for rest and recreation. It grew 
out of the demands which the motormen and conductors 
made for shorter hours and greater pay and for official 
recognition of their union, which then flourished under 
the ponderous name of Amalgamated Street Railway Em- 
ployes, and which had the financial assistance of other 
unions in various sections of the country. These de- 
mands were unreasonable and tyrannical in their char- 
acter and submission to them would have been equivalent 
to a surrender of the control of the road. Upon the re- 
turn of Mr. Payne from abroad, although he was not then 
in vigorous health, and although political ambitions might 
have made his stay in the background a matter of the 
highest prudence, he assumed immediately the burdens 
of his office in the Railway Company, one of which 
burdens was the management of its affairs during this 
strike. Mr. Payne's position was that, whatever the 
merits of the complaints, the company must be permitted 
to manage its affairs in its own way and without the co- 
ercion or interference of a labor union. It would seem 
that the majority of the populace did not agree with Mr. 
Payne's position. The tie-up by the strikers, which be- 
gan on Monday, May 4, 1896, was at first effectual, the 
road was greatly handicapped, and the management 
labored under the obloquy not only of the rebelling work- 
men, but also of the incommoded and unsympathetic pub- 
lic. However, the company put on a bold front, ran 



Concerning Street Railways 61 

the cars so far as their loyal help permitted, imported 
strike breaking- motormen and conductors from every- 
where, and paid special deputies in citizens' clothes to 
protect the crews from assaults. It required no little 
courage for a patron to board the cars. He had fear of 
his head from the vagaries of a fugitive stone, and he 
had the additional fear of a boycott of his business in 
case he should be spotted. Stages did a thriving trade, 
men unused to walking developed abnormal muscles, 
while heavily laden teams mysteriously broke down ath- 
wart the tracks and no bystanders could be found to as- 
sist in clearing the wrecks. While the conflict was at its 
height the strikers, astonished at the unyielding front dis- 
played by the company, sent a committee to the directors 
offering to call off the strike and abandon their demands, 
if they could be accorded their former positions with the 
company. Not a few of the directors, anxious to ter- 
minate the unprofitable strife, jumped at this proposition. 
But Mr. Payne absolutely and positively refused to con- 
sider the offer, involving as it did bad faith to the new- 
men who had taken the strikers' places upon the express 
promise of Mr. Payne that they should not be molested. 
Air. Payne's firmness and insistence won the other 
directors and the strike continued. 

The boycott was as effective as the strike and con- 
tinued long after the strike had been defeated. Grocers, 
butchers and tobacconists refused the patronage of the 
strike breakers and of the loyal old employes. With diffi- 
culty these procured bread and meat for themselves and 
their families. The company, which was feeding and 
housing the working crews, in improvised kitchens and 



62 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

barracks, could not purchase supplies in Milwaukee and 
was obliged to procure from Chicago food already pre- 
pared and import cooks. 

While the non-sufferers enjoyed the situation, Mr. 
Payne was the object of particular hatred, the strikers 
being especially severe. He was burned in effigy, scare- 
crow bodies bearing his name were gleefully trampled 
upon, and on one occasion he was exhibited in an open 
window lying in a coffin on which was pinned the in- 
scription, Death to Scab Payne! Well-bred people con- 
demned him, ill-bred people called him names, the labor- 
ing classes cursed him, the politicians shunned him, the 
mobs surging the streets jeered at the mention of his 
name. But none of these things moved him from uni- 
form serenity. Conscious that his position was sound, 
he kept on importing new men, the strikers were impotent 
to prevent their arrival, the police quelled the disturbers, 
the cars gradually assumed regular routine, the new men 
became accustomed to their positions, the strike died out, 
the Amalgamated Street Railway Employes was no more. 
Those of the old men who had not been violent in the 
strike and who by returning would not displace the men 
wlio had stood by the company in their trial, were taken 
back. These with the new men constitute the nucleus of 
the present employes who in self-discipline and in loyalty 
to the interests of the company are of the highest grade 
of excellence. 

All through the long years of negotiation necessary to 
consolidation of the various railways and lighting com- 
panies, and during the following years of reconstruction, 
Mr. Payne stood at the helm, guiding and controlling al- 
most absolutely the complicated affairs of the company, 



Concerning Street Railways G3 



and in addition performing the duties of general manager 

for the operation of the road, aided only by consultation 
with the New York representatives of the company. The 
consolidation was now effected. The reconstruction was 
about finished, and the task which he had assumed was 
successfully accomplished. After years of laborious de- 
tail work, Mr. Payne wished now to be relieved of a part 
of his burden, and Mr. Charles D. Wyman was about 
this time engaged as general manager, and as such he 
assisted Mr. Payne through some of the trying crises 
through which the Company had to pass, notably the 
strike of 1896, and the attempt of the Common Council 
of Milwaukee to compel a reduction of the fares. Mr. 
Wyman later accepted a position with the street railways 
of New Orleans, and Mr. John I. Beggs (who had been 
the western representative of the Edison General Electric 
Company) was appointed general manager of the Mil- 
waukee Company and thereafter shared the onerous 
duties of the management with Mr. Payne, until the 
latter withdrew from all active connection with the affairs 
of the company. 

The road was one of large possibilities, but because 
of the great expense of consolidation and reconstruc- 
tion and especially because that for several years the 
patronage of the road as compared with that of other 
cities of about the same population as Milwaukee was very 
small, the income had been greatly inadequate, the road 
not earning the interest on its new indebtedness: with 
poor equipment, in some parts of the system little more 
than "a franchise and a streak of rust," the lines needed 
and received unremitting, exhausting and, in the case of 
Mr. Payne, undermining toil. 



64 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

Several matters pertaining to Mr. Payne's labors for 
consolidation deserve attention, but are not presented per- 
haps in a strictly chronological order : 

Firstly : The selection of the site of the present Public 
Service Building or terminal station of the street railways, 
at the block bounded by Second, Sycamore, Third and 
Everett Streets. From the company's records in New 
York the fact appears that the conception of the idea 
of a central depot or station with offices in the heart of 
the city was due to Mr. Payne, and that he himself 
selected the site above described, which has since been 
utilized. Much of the preliminary planning for the 
stately structure now standing upon this site was done by 
Mr. Payne, and its present admirable equipment for the 
work intended, as well as for the comfort, convenience 
and happiness of the employes, laboriously and ingen- 
iously wrought out by Mr. Beggs, would have delighted 
the soul of Mr. Payne could he have lived to wander 
through the completed building in 1906. His portrait 
was presented by Mrs. Payne to the company with the 
request that it hang in an appropriate place in this new 
building. 

Secondly : The contest over reduction of fares. — On 
June 11. 1896, just about the period of the strike before 
alluded to, the Common Council adopted an ordinance re- 
quiring the Street Railway Company to sell six tickets for 
twenty-five cents, and twenty-five tickets for one dollar. 
The company was then in no financial condition to stand 
the consequent reduction of income and contested the rea- 
sonableness of the ordinance. Into the litigation which 
resulted from the city's attempt to enforce the ordinance, 
Mr. Payne threw all his heart and soul. He assisted the 



Concerning Street Railways G5 



counsel for the company in marshalling the evidence to 
show the injustice of the city's action, and in earnest and 
convincing language presented the argument before de- 
liberating committees, and the facts before the courts. 
Two actions* were begun against the city, one by the 
Railway Company and the other by The Central Trust 
Company, the trustee for the bondholders. Both com- 
plainants sought a decree declaring the ordinance null and 
void as a violation of the constitution of the United States. 
The case was argued before Judge Seaman in the Circuit 
Court of the United States, Eastern District of Wiscon- 
sin, and his long and luminous opinion on the subject of 
the reasonableness of the ordinance went a long way in 
settling the law upon that subject. Judge Seaman, on 
May 31, 1898, granted an injunction perpetually enjoin- 
ing the enforcement of the ordinance. The syllabus of 
the case sufficiently sums up the decision of Judge 
Seaman : 

1. An ordinance requiring a street railroad charging five cent 
fares to sell six tickets for twenty-five cents or twenty-five tickets 
for one dollar is unreasonable when the road is only making yearly 
net earnings of 3.3 per cent, to 4.5 per cent, on its bona fide in- 
vestment and paying 5 per cent, interest on its bonds, in a city where 
the current rate of interest on first mortgage real estate security is 
6 per cent. Such an ordinance is void under the fourteenth amend- 
ment, as depriving the company of its property without due process 
of law. 

2. The power of a municipality to regulate street-railroad fares 
is subject to the limitations (1) that there is reasonable need on 
the part of the public, considering the nature and extent of the 
service, of lower rates and better terms than those existing; (2) that 
the rates and terms fixed by the ordinance are not clearly unreason- 
able, in view of all the conditions. 



^Milwaukee Electric Railway a>id Light Company v. the City of 
Milwaukee, and Central Trust Company of New York v. the City of 
Milwaukee, 87 Federal Reporter 577. See also Tift v. Southern 
Railway Company, 138 Federal Reporter 753, 768. 



66 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



After this decision, in the fall of 1898 the mayor 
sought to obtain by concession from the Railway Com- 
pany what was impossible to obtain by demand. The 
company was unwilling - to concede a reduction of fare, 
but agreed to make annually increasing money payments 
to the city if an extension of franchises were accorded. 
The correspondence embodying this matter was submitted 
to the Council November 19, 1898, but the subject was 
ordered indefinitely postponed by the Council because such 
payments, while a benefit to the city, would not benefit 
the public as would reduction of fares. This subject will 
soon appear again. 

Thirdly: Contest over non-user of franchises. — 
There were other instances of the harassing of the street 
railway consolidation in the beginning of its career in 
Milwaukee. One such instance was the action in equity 
brought May 24, 1896, to enjoin the company from re- 
laying its tracks along Washington Avenue in Milwaukee, 
in front of the property of the plaintiffs. For four years 
and eight months prior to said date — a period of great in- 
dustrial depression at large, as well as of financial strin- 
gency with the company — it had not operated its line 
along this avenue. Indeed, with the company's knowl- 
edge, the old track, not adapted for electricity, had long 
been taken up and the street paved. An ordinance was 
introduced December 2, 1895, to repeal the franchise 
along that portion of the avenue where the plaintiffs lived, 
but Mr. Payne appeared before the railroad committee of 
the Council and objected to the forfeiture on the ground 
that the company intended to reconstruct and reoperate 
in the spring of 1896. No action to forfeit was taken. 
Early in the morning of Sunday. May 24, 1896, with a 



Concerning Street Railways 67 

large force, the company started to lay its tracks along 
the avenue in front of the property of plaintiffs. The 
latter claimed that this was "snap" action intended to 
avoid injunctions; Mr. Payne claimed that Sunday was 
used in order to delay traffic as little as possible on secular 
days. If the former was the reason it was unavailing, 
for an injunction obtained on Sunday stopped the work, 
and on Monday the Board of Public Works ordered the 
company to take away its rails and ties and restore the 
avenue within twenty-four hours. Thereupon the next 
day the company enjoined the city from enforcing this 
order. This injunction was dissolved in the lower court 
and an injunction which the city had obtained preventing 
construction and operation was upheld in the court below. 
Both injunctions and the order dissolving the company's 
injunction went to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin,* and 
a victory was scored for the company on all points. 

The court held that although it was the company's 
duty to serve the public and that it could not emancipate 
itself from that duty by refusing to operate its cars, yet 
that in view of Mr. Payne's representation of the inten- 
tion of the company to reconstruct and reoperate, and 
in view of an express disclaimer by the company of an 
intention to surrender, the fact of non-user for four years 
and eight months could not under the circumstances be 
construed into a surrender. 

The Supreme Court held also that the city had mis- 
taken its remedy. While the state had delegated to the 
city authority to act for it and on its behalf in granting 

*Wright v. Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company. 95 
Wisconsin 29, 36 L. R. A. 47; Milwaukee Electric Raihvay and Light 
Company v. City of Milwaukee, 95 Wisconsin 42, 36 L. R. A. 45. 



68 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

franchises to build and operate street railways, it had not 
granted the city the power to institute and maintain ac- 
tions to forfeit such franchises for misuse or abuse. Such 
forfeiture must be adjudged by an action in the name of 
the state acting through its attorney general and by leave 
of the Supreme Court. 

Fourthly: Franchise extension. — With the placing, 
by the Xew York capitalists, of vast sums of money in 
the Milwaukee plant, came the desire to recoup the same 
by a lengthening of the time of the enjoyment of the 
franchises. Excepting franchises covering two streets of 
minor importance, none of these franchises would have 
expired until July I, 1924. Such a desire on the part of 
these capitalists was not unreasonable. Extensive im- 
provements were making in every direction; new and 
larger cars adorned the streets; new and heavier rails 
afforded smooth transportation ; outspreading lines 
tapped populous and lucrative suburban districts; a gi- 
gantic power house ornamented the city and heightened 
the efficiency of the plant. Thus to better the system 
without return or without hope of ample recoupment was 
not to be expected — a tenant will be prodigal of his own 
funds in a rented house only with a long lease. 

As a result of these considerations the Street Railway 
Company met half way a proposition of the city for a re- 
duction of fares, seeing in this proposition a chance for 
securing the much desired extension. On July 31, 1899, 
the Common Council appointed a committee of nine alder- 
men to investigate the subject of reduction of fares, which 
committee entered into negotiations with the representa- 
tives of the company. Many and wearisome were the 
conferences. The company appeared by Mr. Villard, 



Concerning Street Railways 69 

Mr. William N. Cromwell, Mr. Charles W. Wetmore, 
Mr. George R. Sheldon, Mr. Payne, Mr. Benjamin K. 
Miller, Jr., Mr. Charles F. Pfister and Mr. Beggs, while in 
addition to the members of the committee the city was 
represented by the mayor, Mr. David S. Rose; the city 
attorney, Mr. Carl Rnnge, and his first assistant, Mr. 
Lawrence W. Halsey. 

An ordinance prepared by the city attorney was 
printed in the papers of the city, October 14, 1899. It 
was attacked and defended by citizens, and by order of 
the committee of aldermen was redrafted. On Novem- 
ber 6, 1899, the redrafted ordinance was recommended 
by the committee to the Council, was read a second and 
third time and referred to the same committee. This or- 
dinance in addition to making grant of additional streets 
for line extensions and fixing a graduated rate of fares, 
provided that the franchise should end on December 31, 
1934 — a date exceeding by about six years the date of 
maturity of the company's bonds, and exceedingly more 
than ten years whatever date of expiry had theretofore 
existed. This tentative ordinance remained in the hands 
of the committee almost a month. On December 4, 1899, 
it reported a substitute ordinance not substantially differ- 
ent from its predecessor. On December 18, 1899, the 
substitute, slightly amended by the Council, was ordered 
to a third reading and for engrossment. 

But the ordinance was not to pass without opposition, 
and opposition that took the form of legal proceedings. 
Opposition proceeded from various sources, from lot 
owners who did not wish the passing cars, from socialists 
who clamored for municipal ownership, from disgruntled 
citizens who were opposed to all busy ventures and con- 



70 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

sidered activity a crime; from newspapers, hostile per- 
sonally to officers of the company, and from romancing 
writers who in subsequently issued anonymous screeds 
thinly veiled their libels under slight variations of names. 
The litigation which began December 21, 1899, found its 
way into the Supreme Court in three different actions, but 
the details are foreign to this biography.* Let it suffice 
to state that when the substitute ordinance as amended 
came before the Council for final action January 2, 1900, 
the Council, the mayor and the city clerk had been en- 
joined "from signing, engrossing, passing, amending, 
voting on, publishing, approving, or enforcing" the said 
proposed ordinance, or any similar ordinance. The 
mayor, the city clerk, and twenty-five of the forty-two 
aldermen, advised by counsel learned in the law that they 
were acting legislatively in passing upon the ordinance, 
that no court had jurisdiction over the matter, that the 
injunction was void and no penalty could be inflicted for 
its alleged violation, paid no heed to the injunction. The 
ordinance was passed by the vote of the twenty-five 
favoring aldermen, and the mayor signed it forthwith. 
The Supreme Court held that the court below had no au- 
thority to enjoin its passage. 

But, although nine-tenths of the business men of Mil- 
waukee favored the ordinance, immediately a loud cry of 
bribery was heard, a cry which indeed began soon after 
the negotiations opened, a cry which has not yet ceased 
to be heard, a cry which it is yet to be discovered had 



*See The State ex rel. Rose v. Superior Court of Milwaukee 
County, 105 Wisconsin 651 ; Stair ex rel. City of Milwaukee v. Lad- 
wig, Judge, 106 Wisconsin 226; Linden Land Company v. Tlte M;l- 
waukee Electric Railway and Light Company, 107 Wisconsin 493. 



Concern ixg Street Railways 71 

cause to be heard, a cry which, considering the advantages 
which the city reaped from the ordinance, was absurd. 
Let some of these advantages, resulting in large part from 
Air. Payne's labors, pass briefly in review : 

i. The ordinance fixed a uniform time for the ex- 
piration of the franchises of all the different roads com- 
posing the system. Prior thereto, some of the franchises 
were to expire July I, 1924, and franchises covering fif- 
teen miles of principal streets of the city were perpetual in 
duration. 

2. Transfers which, prior to the passage of this ordi- 
nance were a courtesy, became now an obligation beyond 
recall. As forty-five per centum of passengers demand a 
transfer this is an item of no little moment. 

3. Firemen and police officers in uniform and de- 
tectives in the police service ride free of charge. 

4. Electricity is furnished free of charge for the 
operation of the bridges — an item of saving to the city 
of not less than twenty-five thousand dollars yearly. 

5. Under the provisions of the former ordinances 
the city had no right to regulate the setting of poles, the 
stringing of wires, the opening of street pavements, the 
extension of lines, or other matters of public importance. 
Such acts as these were mere naked grants, in the main, 
effectual only so long as the grantees elected to use them. 
The new ordinance reserve- to the city rigorous control 
of these and kindred matters. 

6. A four-cent fare became obligatory under a ticket 
system during certain hours of the day, to cover the entire 
day after January 1. 1905. During the month of Feb- 
ruary. 1906, the average daily use of four-cent tickets was 



72 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

134,906, a daily saving to passengers of $1,349.06; a 
yearly saving of $492,406.90. Half fare for children be- 
tween three and ten years of age and free transportation 
for children under three years became also obligatory. 

7. The road became bound to press on its lines as 
extensions of the city limits should be made, the fare 
v ithin the limits, however far extended, to be no more 
than five cents. 

8. The extension ordinance having unified the sys- 
tem, the management could never disintegrate the system 
into its units and require a separate fare from each unit. 

9. The road with its longer lease of life became more 
than ever willing to make improvements and better the 
system — a result which has followed. 

If it be claimed that this long recital is foreign to the 
purpose of this biography, the reply is that the charge of 
bribing was insinuated particularly against Mr. Payne. 
This book makes bold to assert that not the slightest proof 
of this charge has ever been presented, that no proof ever 
can be presented, that there is not an atom of foundation 
for the charge, and that the supporters of this ordinance 
by favoring it did their bounden righteous duty to the 
city of Milwaukee and to the patrons of the street railway. 

At the risk of repetition, perhaps at the risk of urging 
too partial an opinion of Mr. Payne, I cannot forbear a 
lengthy expression from Mr. William L. Mason, who in 
1891 became in Milwaukee the auditor of the Milwaukee 
Street Railway Company. These paragraphs are one of 
many evidences that, although the populace, deceived by 
clamor, might deride Mr. Payne as a politician, a monop- 
olist, the head of a soulless corporation, one had but to be 



Concern i xg Street Railways 73 



near him, to be associated with him, to know that he was 
not a monster, but really a human being, and a being with 
a warm heart and a lovable disposition. 

During the winter of 1890-91, while on a visit to Washington, D. 
C, I was called to New York to meet Mr. Henry Villard by the 
offer of a position to represent in Milwaukee, the New York in- 
terests of the Milwaukee Electric Railway and Lighting Company. 
There I first met the Honorable Henry C. Payne. After concluding 
arrangements with Mr. Villard to our mutual satisfaction, I was 
introduced to Mr. Payne, who was at that time Vice-President and 
General Manager of the Milwaukee Company, and there began a 
personal friendship between us, which grew more and more intimate 
throughout the eight years of my connection with the company 
and which lasted until his death. 

The duties of my office brought me into consultation with Mr. 
Payne many times each day, and often all day, so that my oppor- 
tunities for observing his characteristics as a man, and an officer 
of the company were exceptional. Through all the wear and worry 
and hard work of the construction period, at a time when electric 
street railway construction was almost in its infancy, and there were 
scarcely any precedents for his guidance, Mr. Payne kept a firm, 
capable hand upon the helm, and guided the undertaking to a most 
successful issue, both mechanical and financial. 

He was constantly called upon to decide new and important 
questions, and at very short notice. 

While, of course, the thousand and one details in the different 
departments of construction were under the immediate supervision 
of experts, yet the experts often disagreed, and there would be 
immediate reference to Mr. Payne. My attention was first attracted 
to his remarkable ability to listen to details and instantly grasp the 
results to which they led. He was not in any sense an expert 
accountant, and yet on very many occasions, when complicated 
propositions were submitted to him by the accountants, requiring 
hours of patient figuring on their part to determine what the actual 
results would be, I have known him to decide the moment he was 
in possession of the main conditions, which of two or three different 
methods of procedure would be for the advantage of the company 
and invariably later demonstrations would prove that he was right. 
I have frequently observed the same thing in the mechanical and 
electrical departments, although he was neither an electrical nor 
mechanical expert ; he frequently excited the wonder of those who 
were experts, by his quick and comprehensive grasp of the subject 
brought to his attention and his almost invariably successful solution 
of the problem involved. 



74 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



In addition to the difficulties of organization and construction 
ordinarily attendant upon such an undertaking, he was beset by- 
opposition in the state legislature, opposition at the city hall, and 
opposition among the citizens and in the newspapers, inspired by 
political differences, by ignorance of the actual situation, and even by 
fabrication. He met all this with unruffled front, and, ignoring abuse, 
quietly and persistingly opposing ignorance and untruth with facts 
and figures, insisting with quiet courtesy on justice and fair play, he 
at last won the fight against bitter odds, and to-day the Milwaukee 
Company, one of the best equipped and most successful electric rail- 
way lighting companies in the country, and one of which Milwaukee 
is very proud, is a magnificent monument to the remarkable powers 
of organization, and to the splendid ability of Henry C. Payne. 

One great source of Mr. Payne's power lay in his influence over 
men, both individually and in assembly. During the seething, sensi- 
tive days of a bitter strike, which had been caused solely by circum- 
stances and conditions over which Mr. Payne had no control, I have 
seen a committee of conductors and motormen enter Mr. Payne's 
room, by appointment, for a conference. I have heard them utter 
their grievances in bitter language and with angry looks and voices. 
An hour later I have seen that same committee leave the room with 
smiling faces and pleasant words, although no promises had been 
made on the part of the company, and no change in the conditions 
been agreed upon. It was all accomplished by the open, frank, 
courteous way in which they were met, and conditions explained to 
them by Mr. Payne and the unhesitating belief of the men in the truth 
of his statements. All the employes of the company with whom I 
came in contact, spoke in warm terms of his invariable kindness and 
courtesy, and expressed the highest appreciation of his ability. 

It was impossible to be associated with Mr. Payne for any 
length of time without loving him. He was always the same, not 
one thing one day and something else the next. One always knew 
where to find him. His manner was frank, open, and full of a manly 
bonhomie that was fascinating in the highest degree, and drew their 
very best efforts, from all with whom he came in contact. Those of 
us who worked through those eight years from 1890 to 1898 in close 
relation with him, know full well his sterling qualities. 

A man of generous impulses, of kindness of heart, of invariable 
courtesy, full of strength and encouragement in time of trouble, 
never speaking evil of any of those by whom he was vilified and 
abused, he pursued the even tenor of his way, hewing straight to the 
line, faithfully fulfilling his duty as he saw it, and followed by the 
admiration of all his associates who knew him well, and by the love 
of those who knew him best. 



Concerning Street Railways 75 

There should also be preserved the following lines 
from Mr. Charles A. Spofford, of Xew York City, until 
recently the Secretary, in Xew York, of The Milwaukee 
Electric Railway and Light Company: 

My first acquaintance with Mr. Payne was in 1890, when Mr. 
Henry Villard became interested in the union of certain Milwaukee 
street railways into what became known as the Milwaukee Street 
Railway Company, and which subsequently developed into the pres- 
ent The Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light Company. Mr. Payne 
was the leader of this enterprise in every sense of the word, and 
ably directed all of its departments. To his genius for organization, 
constructive ability and efficient management are due the conspicu- 
ous success of this undertaking, with which he was identified so 
many years. Not only were his mind and energies enlisted, but his 
heart was in this work, as was the ca<e with everything he under- 
took. Without attempting to recall the many problems with which 
he wrestled in this connection, and the many serious obstacles which 
he overcame, I will mention how deeply impressed I was, and shall 
always be, with his admirable attitude and conduct during the 
strike and boycott of the motormen and conductors. 1 was in Mil- 
waukee at the time, and was a witness of the true courage and gen- 
eralship which he displayed throughout the contest. He never 
wavered, and was always at the front, although the vindictive spirit 
shown against Mr. Payne personally, in his home city, because of his 
stout advocacy of his company's legal rights, rose to such a pitch 
that he was hung in effigy in the streets. 

There was a number of crises in the history of this project. At 
each of these periods Mr. Payne invariably rose to the occasion, and 
carried the company triumphantly through. His exhaustive knowl- 
edge of the geography of Milwaukee and its suburbs lent great 
value to his suggestions concerning extensions of routes, or altera- 
tions of lines to meet new conditions. 

His associates had the highest appreciation of his remarkable 
capacity as an organizer and administrator, and his counsel and ad- 
vice were greatly esteemed by them. He possessed their entire con- 
fidence, and was al\va}s faithful to the interests entrusted to him. 

Mr. Payne possessed that quality of character which, having 
once espoused a cause, made him work for it zealously and increas- 
ingly. His stanch loyalty to trusts reposed in him was not con 
to business, but was shown in the wider field of the politics of the 
country. In these activities of his life I was but an onlooker, but 
I shared the admiration of his other friends at the keen insight, 
excellent judgment, practical common sense and unremitting labor 
that enabled him to achieve such distinguished honors. 



76 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Mr. Charles D. Wyman, already mentioned as gen- 
eral manager of the Milwaukee Street Railway Company 
in 1893, has thus written concerning the subject of this 
biography : 

In 1893, at the time I became its manager, the Milwaukee Street 
Railway had, under Mr. Payne's management and in accordance with 
plans of which he was the author, completed the consolidation of 
the various street railroad lines in the city, including also an electric 
lighting system, and had, at great expense, changed the form of 
traction from horse to electricity. The application of electric traction 
to street railroads had hardly passed the experimental period at that 
time, the Milwaukee Company being one of the pioneers in the adop- 
tion of this form of street traction, and the changing over of the 
street roads in the city had necessarily been accompanied by more or 
less of experimental work entailing very large construction costs. 

Before the improvements to the company's equipment were 
entirely completed and while large sums of money were still neces- 
sary to make extensions, relay track and build additional buildings 
suited to its work, a financial panic in the city occurred which re- 
sulted in the failure of several banks, and thus, owing to the de- 
pression in the general business of the city, the income of the com- 
pany did not show the anticipated increase upon which had been 
predicated the large investment involved in the change of the street 
roads from horse power to electricity. This condition forced upon 
the company a situation which taxed to the utmost the skill, enthu- 
siasm and patience of its directors and officials, and naturally, to 
one just entering the company's service, ambitious of success and 
reputation, was somewhat disheartening; but Mr. Payne as Vice- 
President continued to actively assist in the promotion of the com- 
pany's plans — even in the matter of details, counseling and suggest- 
ing, and always in a most kindly and cheering way. During these 
dark clays he was a tower of strength and stimulation to his sub- 
ordinates, and it was largely due to his unswerving faith in the 
future development of the company's business that the enterprise 
was sustained and ultimately established upon a profitable basis. 

One of the most perplexing features to the company's manage- 
ment at that time was the labor situation. In his conduct of its 
affairs, Mr. Payne had cultivated pleasant relations with all the em- 
ployes, taking a personal interest in their life and surroundings, apart 
from that simply connected with their employment by the company. 
He was proud of the fact that very many of the conductors and 
motormen, as well as those employed in other capacities, had been 
able to purchase their own homes and in other ways had become 



Concerning Street Railways 77 



forehanded, and the habit of saving and properly investing he had 
urged and promoted in every way in his power, advising and assist- 
ing his employes in their endeavors to secure for themselves a 
modest competency. 

Although for some time a union had existed, by being thoroughly 
in touch with his men and having their respect and confidence, he 
had prevented radical demands on the part of the leaders and 
avoided, therefore, a clash which he felt must redound to the injury 
both of the employer and the employe. Unfortunately, as is often 
the case in union organizations like those prevalent on street rail- 
ways, the counsels of the conservative and steady-going among the 
employes were, as the years passed, less heeded, and in 1896 the 
union, under the advice of outside labor agitators and local leaders 
who desired to promote their own personal advancement, made de- 
mands which amounted practically to the turning over of the com- 
pany to their organization for management. A scale of wages was 
asked which it was impossible in justice to pay, and, farther, the 
company was required to employ only such men as the union would 
approve, and to discharge such men as it considered inimical to or 
negligent of its organization. 

In this crisis Mr. Payne exhibited to me in the most striking 
manner the rare judicial quality of his reasoning, coupled with the 
kindliness which always characterized his action toward everyone. 
In our discussions regarding the matter he iterated and reiterated 
to me that the company must be absolutely just and fair in its deal- 
ing with its employes and resist every inclination to be autocratic or 
peremptory. He wished every measure adopted that would show to 
the men that the union leaders in their policy were mistaken and 
selfish, and that the result of such a policy must certainly be person; 1 
suffering and privation, loss of wages and perhaps homes, to a large 
number of the employes. While as Vice-President and Managing 
Director of the company he endeavored to avoid the issue on ac- 
count of the loss it would entail to the interests he had in charge, 
and while as a citizen he gravely deplored and sought in every way 
possible to avoid the injury likely to result from a strike to the 
general business interests of the city, his especial regret was that 
many of the workmen would be losers and suffer from the clash 
imminent. His advice was always. "Do everything possible, even 
to the verge of injustice to the company, to avoid a rupture which 
would ultimately bring suffering to so many of the faithful, but 
mistaken workers."' 

Holding as he did a commanding position in the Republican 
party of his state and of the country, his connection with the com- 
pany was, during the writer's term of office, made the occasion of 



78 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

many an attack upon him through the newspapers by those who 
sought to weaken his influence and injure his position as a politician 
by urging that he was a "corporation man," and therefore necessarily 
untrue to the city's interests and to those of the public at large, and 
when the labor difficulties arose these attacks were more virulent and 
pronounced. He was made a target of abuse by the labor papers 
especially, and by many of those whom he had formerly counted 
among his friends. Some pronounced openly against him, while 
others, actuated by their feebly disguised envy and jealousy, couched 
their threats under the form of advice. He, however, was unmoved 
by public clamor, but held to the policy of justice equally to the 
interests of the company and the men, and of fairness but firmness 
in the carrying into effect of such a policy. Not hastily, but after 
long and careful consultation, it was decided that the company could 
not accede to the demands of the union, and, if a strike was necessary, 
would endure it. 

The greatest railroad strike which, up to that time, had ever oc- 
curred in the country, began consequent upon this decision in May, 
1896, and for weeks, nay, months, the fight went on. It was during 
these trying times that Mr. Payne's strong will, judicial but firm, 
loyalty to principles and faithfulness to his duty were exhibited to 
the writer in most striking colors. With the officials of the com- 
pany placarded in newspapers and subjected by the journals that 
catered to the laboring element to all sorts of denunciations and 
offensive characterizations, in spite of the pressure from political 
friends in the state and in the country who prophesied that the effect 
of the strike would be to very seriously injure the Republican party, 
he followed unwaveringly the policy which he had decided was right, 
and in which he had the support of his co-officials and directors, since 
it appealed to them as just and fair. 

Recalling the incidents of those months of labor and perplexity, 
of loss to the company, and of suffering to the men, of injury to 
the business interests of the city, of violence and rioting on the part 
of the union and its adherents. I cannot repress my appreciation, 
even wonder, at the burden, political and business, which Mr. Payne 
bore so uncomplainingly, so strongly and so persistently. 

Mr. Payne continued as vice-president of The Mil- 
waukee Electric Railway and Light Company until, in 
1901, the sphere of his activities having been transferred 
to the capital of the United States, he withdrew from all 
active connection with street railway affairs. 



The Northern Pacific Receivership 79 



CHAPTER X 



CIjc Ji3octJ)crn pacific Receitoersinp 

Coincident with Mr. Payne's early experience in 
directing a local electric road was his larger experience in 
managing a great steam road. 

The Northern Pacific Railroad Company was organ- 
ized July 2, 1864, by the Congress of the United States* 
to construct a railroad and telegraph line from Lake Su- 
perior to Puget Sound, with the assistance of an extensive 
land grant. The road was finished in accordance with 
the provisions of the act and in 1893, was being operated 
for a distance of more than two thousand miles, from 
Ashland in Wisconsin to Portland in Oregon and Ta- 
coma in Washington, with 3,840,000 acres of its grant 
still in possession. On April 1, 1890, this road had 
leased the lines of railroad from Saint Paul and Ashland 
to Milwaukee and Chicago, which were then owned by 
the Wisconsin Central Railroad Company and by the 
Wisconsin Central Railway Company and on August 15, 
1893, the Northern Pacific was operating the Wisconsin 
Central lines under this lease. 

But on the last date named the Northern Pacific, suf- 
fering under the general depression growing out of "the 
panic of 1893," was insolvent, and Mr. P. B. Winston 
and other creditors began proceedings against the insol- 

♦13 United States Statutes at Large 365. 



80 Henry Clay Payxe : A Life 



vent in the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Wis- 
consin. Mr. James G. Jenkins, already mentioned in this 
narrative, was the circuit judge, having been commis- 
sioned March 23, 1893. The result of the proceedings 
thus initiated was the appointment of Air. Payne, Air. 
Thomas F. Oakes and Mr. Henry C. Rouse as receivers 
of all the property of the Northern Pacific Company, in- 
cluding the leased lines just mentioned. Forthwith in all 
the other judicial districts in which this road had prop- 
erty was made the same appointment of receivers, the in- 
solvent consenting thereto. 

Subsequently on September 26, 1893, the receivers be- 
ing in default for rent due to the lessors of the leased lines, 
obeyed an order of the Circuit Court and surrendered 
these lines to the lessors which had canceled the leases for 
the non-payment. 

On October 18, 1893, the proceedings already under- 
taken were complicated by the Farmers' Loan and Trust 
Company of New York, which was the trustee named in 
trust deeds made to it by the Northern Pacific Railroad 
Company. The trustee filed a bill to foreclose these trust 
deeds in the Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Wis- 
consin. So far as possible this Court unraveled the com- 
plication by making the receivers parties to the foreclosure 
suit, and consolidating that suit with the proceedings un- 
der the creditors' bill. 

While the lawyers were handling this matter in the 
courts there was an increasing depression in the trans- 
portation business, the earnings were rapidly falling off, 
and there was necessity for great retrenchment in operat- 
ing expenses. To meet this situation the receivers or- 
dered a wholesale reduction in the salaries and wages of 



The Northern Pacific Receivership 81 

employes. This reduction was resented by the affected 
parties who, aside from the loss of income, claimed that 
the rates in force when the receivers took possession con- 
stituted contracts between the receivers and the employes, 
terminable only by the consent of the latter. 

Discontent and opposition became rife among the em- 
ployes to such an extent that on December 19, 1893, and 
December 22, 1893, the receivers appeared in the Federal 
Circuit Court and sought an order authorizing them to put 
in operation on January 1, 1894, a revised schedule of re- 
duced wages. They prayed also for an injunction re- 
straining threatened destructive and embarrassing action 
of the employes, either individually or as combinations, 
conspiring either among themselves or by the aid of com- 
mittees of orders, brotherhoods and mutual aid associa- 
tions. 

The injunctions which issued on those two December 
dates, along the lines prayed for by the receivers, were 
Aery far reaching in their results and were seriously at- 
tacked not only by the advocates of the workmen, but by 
the workmen themselves, by various labor organizations 
and by individuals who saw in the enjoining orders the 
subversion of personal liberty and menaces to the dignity 
of labor. To comment upon these injunctions at length 
would be foreign to the purpose of this writing.* The 
dissatisfied employes appealed from the decision of Judge 
Jenkins to the Circuit Court of Appeals, where the entire 
important subject was argued at great length. t 

*The text of the injunctions and the opinion of Judge Jenkins 
upholding- their legality, filed April 6, 1894. will be found in 
Farmers' Loan and Trust Company z: Northern Pacific Railroad 
Company, 60 Federal Reporter 803. 

fSee Arthur v. Oakcs, 63 Federal Reporter 310. 



82 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



The appellate court on October i, 1894, modified 
the restraining order in two particulars : Firstly, by re- 
quiring it to describe the nature of the strikes intended 
to be enjoined, limiting them to strikes designed to cripple 
physically the trust property, or actually obstruct the re- 
ceivers in operating the road, or interfere with the em- 
ployes who did not wish to quit, or to prevent by intimi- 
dation or other wrongful modes, or by any device, the 
employment of others to take the places of those quitting; 
secondly, by eliminating from the injunction any order 
which would prevent the workmen without combination 
or conspiracy, "from so quitting the service of the said 
receivers as to cripple the property or prevent or hinder 
the operation of the said railroad." 

It is that portion of the injunction which the appellate 
court thus modified and weakened which opened upon the 
head of Judge Jenkins vials of bitter invective, and which 
has led demagogues even now* to vituperate and assail 
him. Such attacks were most unjust. There is no wiser 
lawyer than Judge Jenkins. He never doubted or denied 
the inherent right of laborers to work or to quit. But in 
this particular instance he had in charge a railway some 
thousands of miles in extent, traversing seven states, en- 
gaged in interstate commerce, carrying the United States 
mails and employing some twelve thousand men who 
were in fact the court's officers, and responsible to it. 
Every consideration of faithfulness to his official oath 
required him to conserve this property, to continue its 



*See the speech of Senator Benjamin R. Tillman of South Caro- 
lina in the Senate, Congressional Record May 3, 1906, page 6397, 
citing a report adverse to Judge Jenkins made by the Judiciary Com- 
mittee of the House of Representatives, in the spring of 1894. 



The Northern Pacific Receivership 83 

usefulness to the government and the public, to nurse its 
resources, to assist in restoring - it a solvent entity to its 
owners, and to point to its busy, undisturbed stretch of 
road as a means to soothe the surrounding universal finan- 
cial disturbance and popular unrest. To compel the em- 
ployes to assist him and the receivers in such a duty, if an 
invasion of personal rights was an invasion that fully 
arose to the dignity of a virtue. 11 ' 

And what had been the practical result of the issuance 
of these December injunctions? Peace and quiet on the 
part of the men; undisturbed performance of their duties 
by the receivers, Messrs. Payne, Rouse and Oakes. Strikes 
were spreading throughout the whole country, while the 
paralleling Great Northern Railroad was in constant tur- 
moil. The Northern Pacific, so far as the receivers and the 
employes were concerned, industriously attended to busi- 
ness. When, in October, 1894, the appellate court was 
ready to decide upon the merits of the injunctions the 
exigency which brought them to birth had passed and the 
orders could well be modified into innocuousness. 

The usefulness of the government control of the 
Northern Pacific system was shown in April, 1894, dur- 
ing the excitements caused by the so-called Coxeyites. 
While "General" Coxey with his motley throng was 
marching upon the nation's capital, other "generals" in 
the west were emulating his example. One of these, 
"General" Hogan, with about six hundred followers in- 



*For essays of law writers upon the decision of Judge Jenkins 
and upon "government by injunction," see 28 American Law Review 
269; 50 Albany Law Journal 140; 11 Harvard Law Review 487; 97 
Law Times, (London) 384. These papers open up the court de- 
cisions likewise. 



84 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

vaded the tracks of the Northern Pacific in Montana, and 
on April 24, 1894, seized a train. Upon notification to the 
government through Mr. John W. Kendrick, the general 
manager of the road, Colonel John H. Page and four 
companies of United States troops started in pursuit, 
intercepted the lawless band at Forsythe, Montana, and 
on April 30 the entire "army" was in camp under military 
guard at Helena, Montana. Mr. Kendrick's promptness 
in ridding the system of this mob and incidentally in 
warning lawless agitators to keep away, received Mr. 
Payne's warm approval. 

Meanwhile the receivers were not neglecting their ad- 
ministrative duties. On April 16, 1894, Mr. Payne was 
elected the president of the Chicago and Northern Pacific 
Railroad. On the same day the Chicago and Calumet 
Railroad passed under his presidential charge. The ob- 
ject of this action was to obtain in the city of Chicago 
terminals for the Northern Pacific system under its own 
control. 

But the litigation over the indebtedness of the North- 
ern Pacific continued. On August 7, 1895, the Railroad 
Company appeared in the Circuit Court of the United 
States for the district of Washington and filed charges 
against the receivers in respect of the methods of their 
appointment and of the administration of their trust. The 
receivers voluntarily appeared and answered to the ques- 
tion of jurisdiction, asserting the ample authority of the 
court which originally appointed them. This assertion 
was fully vindicated by Justices Field, Harlan and 
Brewer, justices of the sixth, eighth and ninth circuits, 
and acceded to by Justice Brown of the seventh circuit. 



The Northern Pacific Receivership 85 



all of them recognizing the Circuit Court for the Eastern 
District of Wisconsin as the court of primary jurisdic- 
tion.* 

As to the charges filed against them, the receivers, be- 
ing in no mood for a lengthy investigation in the State of 
Washington, filed their resignations as receivers in the 
court of primary jurisdiction. After the report of the 
receivers, together with the accounts of their receivership, 
had been submitted to that court, had been carefully and 
laboriously examined and had been fully approved, the 
resignations were accepted September 27, 1895. The 
further vicissitudes of the Northern Pacific Railroad do 
not concern this narrative. t 



*Farmcrs' Loan and Trust Company v. Northern Pacific Railroad 
Company, 72 Federal Reporter 26. 

fAs to the chief actors in the events mentioned in this chapter: 
Thomas Fletcher Oakes resides in Concord, Massachusetts, with an 
office in the city of New York; Henry Clark Rouse died at his 
residence in Cleveland, Ohio, April 30, 1906; Peter M. Arthur, a 
Scotchman by birth, died in Cleveland, in 1903; Mr. Kendrick 
is still living in Chicago, Illinois ; Judge James G. Jenkins, having 
reached retirement age, resigned from the bench February 23, 1905. 
On November r, 1906, he was appointed by Judge Alton B. Parker, 
president of the American Bar Association, one of a committee of 
nine American lawyers to draft a code of professional ethics for the 
Association. 



86 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



CHAPTER XI 



JLater (Elections anD t&e ^t, Loute Contention 

The last reference to Mr. Payne in connection with 
elections had to do with the mayoralty campaign in Mil- 
waukee in the spring- of 1885. This biography need detail 
no further the particulars of each succeeding contest. The 
state, county and city having now become Republican, 
sound judgment and sagacity were alone necessary to 
maintain them so. 

When the summer of 1888 arrived Mr. Payne was a 
delegate at large to the convention of the Republican 
party which nominated Benjamin Harrison for the presi- 
dency. At the election which followed in November, 
Mr. Harrison's plurality over his opponent, Mr. Cleve- 
land, in Wisconsin was 21,321 votes. 

The legislature chosen at the same election sympa- 
thized in politics with the national administration. But 
a measure introduced into that body in good faith by a 
Democrat, and enacted, placed the dominant party tempo- 
rarily in eclipse. Mr. Michael J. Bennett, of Iowa 
County, was the author of the measure in question, which 
became a law by the signature of Governor Hoard and by 
publication April 27, 1889, which is Chapter 519 of the 
laws of that year and which is entitled An act concerning 
the education and employment of children. 

This legislation, familiarly known as the Bennett Law 
and having for its object the betterment of youth, was 



Later Elections 87 



honestly believed by the Lutherans and Roman Catholics 
to aim a blow at the vitals of their parochial schools — a 
belief which the Democrats cleverly nursed for political 
purposes. The Republicans, in opposition to the advice 
of Mr. Payne and other wise heads in the party, accepted 
the law as a party issue and made the "little Red School- 
house" — symbol of free public education — their slogan. 
The result was the alienation of a large body of German 
Republicans and the defeat of Governor Hoard for re- 
election in November, 1890. When Mr. Hoard was a 
candidate in November, 1888, his plurality had been 20,- 
273; Mr. George W. Peck, Democrat, defeated him in 
November, 1890, by a plurality in the county of Milwau- 
kee of 6,207 votes and in the state by a plurality of 28,320 
votes. 

The Bennett Law was repealed by the legislature of 
jggi — indeed a repealing bill was the first measure in- 
troduced in the Assembly after its organization, and the 
repealing act is Chapter 4 of the Laws of 1891. The 
return of the disaffected Rq^ublicans to their former al- 
legiance, although certain, was slow. In the guberna- 
torial election in the fall of 1892 Governor Peck was 
renominated to succeed himself and the Republicans 
selected Mr. John C. Spooner as their standard bearer. 
The result of this election was significant of the steady 
trend of the German Republicans back to their proper 
paddock. Mr. Spooner carried the county of Milwaukee 
by 15 votes and reduced the plurality of Governor Peck 
— which in 1890 had been 28,320 votes — to 7,707 votes. 
By 1894 the influence of the Bennett Law was no longer 
felt. 

Mr. Payne headed the Republican delegation from 



88 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Wisconsin which assembled in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 
the summer of 1892, and with delegates from other states 
constituted the Republican National Convention. The 
same candidates as in 1888 marshalled the Republican and 
Democratic hosts, but there was an entire reversal of re- 
sult — Mr. Cleveland again becoming the president. 

When the time drew near for the assembling of the 
Republican National Convention in 1896 Mr. Payne was 
placed in a position of some embarrassment. Not very 
long before he had resigned the receivership of the 
Northern Pacific; quite recently, as has already been 
stated, he had been hanged in effigy as a "scab" and 
as an enemy of labor; quite recently he had been re- 
fused election by the Republican State Convention as a 
delegate at large to the Republican National Conven- 
tion. But, conscious of his rectitude, none of these 
things moved him. As a member of the Republican 
National Committee he attended the National Convention 
— which held its sessions in Saint Louis — and there met 
the forces which had been in opposition to him in Wis- 
consin and whose efforts were now directed towards op- 
posing his retention upon the National Committee. In 
this attempt they met with a signal failure. He remained 
upon the National Committee, more firmly seated than 
ever before. Indeed, the chairmanship of the committee 
and the management of the impending presidential cam- 
paign were urged upon Mr. Payne by Mr. Marcus A. 
Hanna, who was then the chairman. Mr. Payne declined 
these positions on the ground that his recent connection 
with a great strike rendered such prominence unwise. He 
did, however, accept the position of vice chairman in the 
campaign. 



Later Elections 89 



That Mr. Payne was thus thrust into active association 
with the approaching important presidential election was 
not only a vindication of his honor, but a further recogni- 
tion of his ability as an organizer and manager. And 
this ability shone resplendent in the campaign of 1896, 
wherein Governor William McKinley of Ohio and Mr. 
William J. Bryan of Nebraska were the antagonists. Mr. 
Payne was the chief reliance of the National Committee. 
It was he who from the headquarters at Chicago planned 
the battle. It was through his intimate knowledge of 
political affairs and his rare good judgment that the issues 
between the two great parties were placed squarely and 
fairly before the voters. Mr. Joseph W. Babcock, con- 
gressman from the third district of Wisconsin, thus writes 
concerning the campaign of 1896: 

During this time I had the honor of being the chairman of the 
Republican Congressional Committee and was in close touch with 
Mr. Payne, consulting with him many times as to details. I was 
never able to broach a subject that he was not thoroughly posted on 
and he seemed to have as clear ideas as to matters coming under 
the jurisdiction of the Congressional Committee as he had of matters 
pertaining to his own committee. 

Mr. Harry S. New, of Indianapolis, Indiana, thus ex- 
presses himself concerning Mr. Payne, in political cam- 
paigns and as a man : 

The strength of his character was impressed upon me in the 
first days of my earlier acquaintance with Mr. Payne, and as time 
passed and that acquaintance ripened into warm friendship the fine 
qualities of his nature grew upon me. I was intimately associated 
with him in the Republican National Committee through two hard- 
fought political campaigns and in my judgment his knowledge of 
politics amounted to genius. He was never at a loss to know what 
course to take, but was quick to discern and quick to act. His opin- 
ions were always sought, and as often regarded, by those with whom 
he was associated. Impaired physical health was never allowed to 
interfere with the performance of his work, and indeed in his failure 



90 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



to heed protests of exhausted nature, he was unjust to himself. His 
energy and desire to accomplish results were out of proportion to 
his bodily strength, and there is in my mind no particle of doubt 
that he exhausted his vitality by imposing upon himself too greatly. 
Of kindly nature, loyal in his friendship, devoted to his cause, Mr. 
Payne will be remembered by his associates with affectionate re- 
gard. It is good to have known him, and in the years to come I 
shall cherish the memory of his friendship. 

Upon Mr. Payne's return to Milwaukee after the tri- 
umph of the Republican party in November, 1896, there 
was a noticeable change in popular demeanor towards 
him. Those who had eyed askance the man who did un- 
popular things because he thus conceived his duty, 
gathered in throngs in the hotel corridors to grasp his 
hand, to pour felicitations in his ear, to prophesy a great 
future for the "Napoleon of the political battlefield." And 
this man so recently vilified and traduced, now catered to 
and applauded, tossed his head, sounded forth his cheery 
laugh and exclaimed, ''It's a queer world!" 

It was directly after the election of Governor Mc- 
Kinley that prominent mention began to be made of the 
name of Mr. Payne in connection with the position of 
postmaster-general in the cabinet of the new president. 
This was by no means a new mention. Less distinctly, 
and with growing distinctness, his name had been heard 
in this connection for the past eight years. Mr. Payne 
himself had not been unwilling to admit that the position 
of postmaster-general was the goal of his ambition. 

Now that the election of Mr. McKinley was in great 
measure due to Mr. Payne's exertions, the subject of his 
entering the cabinet was much printed in the papers. Very 
many letters of earnest suggestion and request reached 
the president-elect, — letters from individuals, from politi- 
cal clubs and organizations, from city, county and state 



Later Elections 91 



committees. Indeed, the Republican members of the 
legislature of the state of Kansas in caucus assembled, 
recommended the appointment of Mr. Payne and sent 
their recommendation to the newly chosen president. 

The appointment failed to reach Mr. Payne — perhaps 
for reasons of locality, perhaps because he represented a 
state where factional differences were now rife. The 
failure was a source of deep disappointment to Mr. Payne, 
but he nursed no hatreds and preserved no antagonisms. 
Immediately upon the inauguration of President McKin- 
ley, Mr. Payne called upon him at the White House. The 
president praised him highly for his services in the cam- 
paign so successfully ended, and testified his obligation by 
tendering him his choice of any foreign mission he chose 
to select except that of France and that of England, which 
had already been provided for. This tender Mr. Payne, 
upon his own judgment and upon the advice of his wife, 
thought best to decline, much preferring residence in the 
United States. Coupled with newspaper comment upon 
this declination was the association of his name with the 
vacancy in the Senate of the United States caused by the 
expiration of the term of service of Mr. John L. Mitchell. 

Aside from his active work in the management of the 
campaign of Mr. McKinley, two other efforts toward the 
same end must not pass unnoticed. These are: 

Firstly, his essay entitled Bryan's Fallacies, prepared 
for use as a pamphlet for distribution among voters. This 
is the most ambitious article from the pen of Mr. Payne 
with which I am acquainted. It is written in an easy, 
flowing style, and is a clear and spirited argument against 
bimetallism. 

Secondly, his attitude at the Saint Louis Convention 



92 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

in favor of the gold standard. Much has been written 
about the employment of the word gold in the financial 
plank of the Saint Louis platform. It is known that prior 
to the assembling of the convention Mr. McKinley had 
not been favorable to the actual use of this word, prefer- 
ring that an inference in its favor should be drawn from 
the employment of language pledging the Republican 
party to maintain the "existing standard." A plank thus 
phrased was carried by Senator Hanna from Mr. Mc- 
Kinley to Saint Louis. The insertion of the word "gold'' 
after "existing" was the work of the candidate's friends 
from the middle west in conclave at the Southern Hotel 
in the convention city. The Washington representative 
of the Chicago Times-Herald, in an article* entitled Mr. 
Kohlsaat of Chicago and his part in the political history- 
making of i8p6, gives the credit for the salutary amend- 
ment to Mr. Herman H. Kohlsaat of the Chicago Times- 
Herald and Chicago Evening Post. Claims were made 
that Mr. Kohlsaat, failing to secure Mr. McKinley's con- 
sent to the use of the word "gold" went to Saint Louis 
and, on the Friday before the convention assembled, met 
Mr. McKinley's friends at the Southern Hotel and after 
a long conference in which he was alone against six, 
secured a majority for the much desired word. The art- 
icle says, "After a time Messrs. Payne, Merriam and 
Stone,f who had been somewhat neutral in the discussion, 
came over to Mr. Kohlsaat's side and this gave a majority 
in favor of the word gold." 



*Published in Review of Reviews, January, 1897, page 41. 

tMr. Merriam was Governor William R. Merriam of Minnesota, 
later Director of the United States Census; Mr. Stone was Mr. 
Melville E. Stone of the Associated Press. 



Later Elections 93 



As the writer of the above article was not present at 
this Friday meeting he speaks from hearsay only, and ap- 
parently does not know that Mr. Payne attended this very 
Friday meeting with a gold plank resolution, already pre- 
pared, in his possession. If therefore Mr. Payne was 
"somewhat neutral in the discussion," his "coming over" 
to Mr. Kohlsaat's side was a mere external expression of 
what he already believed and advocated. It may well be 
doubted, too, if Mr. Payne remained "somewhat neutral" 
in the discussion. To be outspoken, not "neutral" was 
Mr. Payne's characteristic, as has already been noticed 
more than once in these pages. Moreover, there is evi- 
dence that shows Mr. Payne hugged the word gold prior 
to the Friday conference alluded to in the article. Senator 
Redfield Proctor of Vermont, who was one of the seven 
at the Friday conference, has written the following nar- 
rative, under date of May 4, 1905 : 

Wliat position should be taken on the gold standard, was the 
great question before the St. Louis Convention of 1896. It was 
then certain that Governor McKinley's friends would be in control, 
and the attitude they might take upon silver coinage and the gold 
standard was of vital importance. Mr. Payne, a week before the ' 
Convention met, called together some of those who favored the 
nomination of Governor McKinley and urged the adoption of a 
strong gold plank. Several conferences were held each day for the 
four days preceding the Friday before the Convention. The regular 
attendants at those conferences were Mr. Payne, Mr. Kohlsaat, 
Governor Merriam of Minnesota, Mr. (now Governor) Herrick of 
Ohio, Mr. Melville E. Stone of the Associated Press and myself. 
Mr. Hanna was in the room often, but, as he expressed it, he was 
"too busy in trying to make a President to give much attention to 
the platform." Others were called in occasionally, but with the 
.-ingle exception named, all from the middle west. Mr. Payne was 
the active one in getting us together. After each meeting he had 
the plank typewritten in his room with the changes that had been 
agreed upon, and copies made for each of us to use at the next 
conference. I have now several of these copies.* 

^Several of these copies are found among Mr. Payne's papers. 



94 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Mr. Kohlsaat was also very earnest at the meetings, and through 
his paper, in advocacy of a strong gold plank. I have a letter from 
him dated June 22, 1896, in which he says that "a copy of the plank 
was handed to me by Henry C. Payne, of Wisconsin, on Friday, 
June 12th, at 9 130 a.m." — the Friday before the Convention. I have 
a copy given me by Mr. Payne at that time, and there were only 
two changes made in it, both unimportant and not strengthening the 
gold feature of the plank. It was wired to Governor McKinley 
that afternoon and received his approval, although he had earlier ap- 
proved a milder expression, avoiding the explicit declaration for a 
"gold standard." 

Mr. Payne, from his wide political acquaintance and influence, 
was potential in securing the assent of delegations enough before 
the Convention met, to make its adoption certain. Mr. Kohlsaat 
urged it with great force in his paper. 

The policy of adopting this gold plank was decided upon by men 
of the middle west, and its adoption made sure by them, and to no 
one is greater credit due for a result fraught with great good to 
the country than to Henry C. Payne, of Wisconsin. 

And Mr. Merriam, already mentioned as another of 
the seven, thus writes : 

The friends of Mr. McKinley, the leading candidate of the Re- 
publican party for the high office of President of the United States, 
were determined not only to nominate him, but to place a plank in 
the platform of the party declaring for gold as the sole standard 
for money in the United States. 

Wisconsin a sound money state, by reason of its conservative, 
law-abiding and patriotic citizenship chose a strong delegation to 
represent its interests at the St. Louis Convention, headed by Hon. 
Henry C. Payne. Living in a neighboring state, I had known Mr. 
Payne for some years very favorably, with a high opinion of his 
character and ability as a leader. His selection as a delegate to the 
Republican Convention insured a good advocate for the gold stand- 
ard as well as a determined and uncompromising champion in a 
cause which so many of us deemed the most important public ques- 
tion for a generation. 

Minnesota Republicans had announced through their convention 
their adherence to the gold standard and had instructed their dele- 
gates, myself among others, to spare no efforts to have placed in 
the Republican national platform a straight out declaration for gold 
as the money standard for the country. 

On my arrival in St. Louis a few days before the opening day 
of the Convention, I found among others on the ground and ready 



Later Elections 95 

for the fray, Mr. Payne, who was at the headquarters of Mr. Hanna, 
the chief representative of Mr. McKinley. Several other friends of 
the candidate had also arrived, and meetings were constantly held in 
Mr. Hanna's rooms for the purpose of putting into shape the pro- 
posed declaration for a gold plank. Among others who were pres- 
ent during the various conferences were Mr. H. C. Payne, of Wis- 
consin, Senator Proctor, of Vermont, Col. Myron Herrick. of Cleve- 
land, Ohio, Mr. Melville C. Stone, of Chicago, Mr. Herman Kohl- 
saat, of Chicago, the writer of this sketch, and, of course, Mr. Hanna. 

The outline of the plank to be used in the proposed platform 
was presented by Mr. Payne, advocated by him, and finally adopted 
with, some modiikations by the members of the conference. It was 
discussed for several days, and at times the conflicting opinions 
threatened to disrupt the self-constituted committee, but in the end 
the work of the gentlemen referred to was chosen as the expression 
of the Convention. When finally in form, it was submitted to the 
leaders of the party, among others Senator Foraker, of Ohio, Senator 
Lodge, of Massachusetts, and Senator Piatt, of New York, and all 
agreed as to its desirability and as expressive of the will of the 
party. During the many conferences held in Mr. Hanna's room 
lasting very frequently until the early morning hours, Mr. Payne 
was the insistent and determined advocate of a plain and unequivocal 
declaration, on the part of the Republican party, of the policy of 
adopting the gold standard. While he listened with patience and 
forbearance to those who were quite willing to avoid the main 
issue and take a doubtful position on the question, he was firm and 
unyielding; and to him is due the credit of helping to inject into the '- 
platform of a great political party, a declaration that resulted in the 
election of William McKinley, and the most prosperous period in the 
world's history. Payne showed his characteristics thoroughly in 
this contest. He was of most gracious and delightful personality, 
with the best of temper, and yet withal decided and uncompromising 
with a principle at stake. He was thoroughly impressed with the 
idea, as many of us were, that the time had come to let the world 
know that the people of the United States propose to maintain its 
commercial integrity at any cost and at all hazards, and that the 
Republican party with its splendid past should be the chosen vehicle 
to accomplish this result. 

Mr. Payne accomplished much in various walks of life, notably 
as a successful business man and as a faithful public servant. His 
work at St. Louis was. in my judgment, the most important in his 
career, and too much credit cannot be awarded him for his splendid 
effort in behalf of a sound currency and untarnished public credit. 



96 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Mr. Payne's own version of the history of the gold 
plank, prepared by him at the request of Senator Hanna 
not long after the adjournment of the Saint Louis Con- 
vention, was printed in the Milwaukee Sentinel, June 25, 
1896, and is as follows: 

I arrived in St. Louis on Wednesday o{ the week before the 
Convention and on that day called on Mark A. Hanna at the Ohio 
headquarters, and discussed with him the financial plank to be in- 
serted in the platform. Mr. Hanna handed me some memoranda 
which he had, covering the points which he thought should be em- 
braced in that plank, requesting me to put them in form and submit 
them at a conference of a few friends and representatives of Gover- 
nor McKinley the next morning. 

I put them in form, and in the morning met Mr. Hanna, Gen. 
Osborne, and Mr. Herrick, all from Ohio. At this conference the 
main points of the plank were agreed to, some minor changes sug- 
gested, and I was requested to put the modified draft in proper form 
and submit it to a meeting of Governor McKinley's friends to be 
held on Friday morning, and the following is the draft then sub- 
mitted : 

"The Republican party is unreservedly for sound money. It 
caused the enactment of the law providing for the resumption of 
specie payments in 1879; since then every dollar has been as good 
as gold. We are unalterably opposed to every measure calculated 
to debase our currency or impair the credit of our country. We are 
therefore opposed to the free and unlimited coinage of silver, ex- 
cept by international agreement with the leading commercial nations 
of Europe, and until such agreement can be obtained we believe the 
existing gold standard should be preserved. We favor the use of 
silver as currency, but to the extent only that its parity with gold 
can be maintained, and we favor all measures designed to maintain 
inviolably the money of the United States, whether coin or paper, 
at the present standard, the standard of the most enlightened nations 
of the earth." 

This draft was submitted to a conference of Governor Mc- 
Kinley's personal friends and supporters on Friday morning, at 
which were present Governor Merriam of Minnesota, Mr. Kohlsaat 
of Chicago, Senator Proctor of Vermont, M. A. Hanna and M. T. 
Herrick of Cleveland, and myself. It met with their unanimous 
approval, whereupon it was telegraphed to Governor McKinley, and 
his approval of it was received within a few hours. 

Governor Merriam represented Minnesota on the Committee on 



Later Elections 97 

Resolutions. The plank as drawn was handed to him and by him 
and Mr. Hanna submitted to Governor Foraker of Ohio, who was 
selected as chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, and it was 
approved by Governor Foraker. 

Upon the arrival of the eastern delegates before referred to, 
Governor Merriam conferred with them, stating that this draft met 
with the approval of the supporters of Governor McKinley, and it 
was declared by these gentlemen to be satisfactory. 

The Committee on Resolutions made some few verbal changes in 
it, but noiie affecting the spirit or essence of its declaration. It will 
therefore be seen that a great injustice is being done to the western 
Republicans, and especially to Governor McKinley and his personal 
friends by the statement that the financial plank was reluctantly ac- 
cepted by them, when as a matter of fact it originated wholly in the 
house of his friends. 

That Mr. Kohlsaat, in his independent newspapers, 
vigorously favored the word gold as necessary to be used 
in the platforms of both or either of the great parties may 
well be admitted, but the statement that at Saint Louis 
he converted Mr. Payne to his views or antedated him in 
the preparation and presentation of a gold plank for the 
platform of the Republican Convention of 1896, is denied. 

Two references of a more general character follow : 
The Chicago Herald of December 14, 1897, contains this 
sentence in regard to the gold plank in the Saint Louis 
platform : 

That plank was the result of the labors of Henry C. Payne of 
Wisconsin, ex-Governor Merriam of Minnesota, Myron T. Herrick 
of Cleveland, Mark A. Hanna and two others, all of them close 
friends and supporters of Governor McKinley. 

A letter from Mr. Herrick, who, when he wrote De- 
cember 12, 1905, was the governor of Ohio, contains this 
passage : 

I remember Mr. Payne, especially in the Saint Louis Convention 
in 1896 when McKinley was nominated the first time, when we were 
endeavoring to harmonize the silver men of the west and the gold 
men of the east, by the introduction into the platform of a money 



98 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



plank. Here Mr. Payne shone in his diplomacy and versatility, both 
in framing the plank and afterward in preventing the extremists of 
both factions from leaving the party. He labored unceasingly, and 
the valuable results of his work in that Convention will never be 
known to the people. I sincerely believe that he gave his life to 
his party and to his country. 



Unequal Representation in Conventions 99 



CHAPTER XII 



Onequal Representation in Contentions 

After an interval of six years, Mr. John C. Spooner 
was re-elected to the Senate of the United States, January 
27, 1897, by the legislature of Wisconsin, receiving every 
Republican vote in the Senate, 29 votes, and every Re- 
publican vote in the Assembly, 91 votes. A close and 
warm friendship long existed between Senator Spooner 
and Air. Payne, and the latter was exceedingly anxious 
that the Senator, whose former career in Congress had 
been brilliant and statesmanlike, should again gain sena- 
torial position. The accomplishment of this result was 
no less gratifying to Mr. Payne than to Senator Spooner, 
whose continued usefulness and influence in Congress 
have amply justified the legislative selection. 

It is perhaps unduly dignifying a malicious and vilify- 
ing writing to notice an article which appeared in a 
monthly magazine of June, 1906, concerning political 
affairs in Wisconsin in 1897, and which contains a refer- 
ence to the subject of this biography. The author de- 
clares that the Wisconsin legislature of 1897 was a 
"Payne legislature," that it "did not represent the people," 
that "it was for the most part a rotten aggregation of 
Republican and Democratic hacks swept in by the Payne- 
Spooner gang on the tide against free silver," and that 
"it was not unnaturally suspected that Spooner's friends 
had to 'give down' for his election." 



100 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

There need be no hesitation in characterizing these 
assertions as wholesale and malevolent libels; cruel, also, 
because they affect in part a man whose protest against 
them death has stilled. That the legislature "did not 
represent the people" is an amusing, as well as an amaz- 
ing, charge when it is considered that the Republicans 
carried Wisconsin and the legislature by the unparalleled 
plurality of 103,000 votes. As to the indirect insinuation 
of bribery, this charge is easily made and it sells maga- 
zines. Senator Spooner, who must have been knowing 
to improper acts to secure his election, declared in 1897, 
"No improper influence of any kind was employed in my 
behalf." And for that matter, why should there have 
been? There was no other candidate for the Republican 
nomination, — why then bribe? On joint ballot of the 
Senate and Assembly there were 120 Republican votes, 
of which Senator Spooner received 120 — why then bribe? 

I have thought best to alphabetize a portion of the so- 
called "rotten aggregation of Republican hacks swept in 
by the Payne-Spooner gang" and constituting a part of 
the "Payne legislature" of 1897, and who are open to the 
charge of having been bribed by "Spooner's friends" in 
order to secure his election. The list might he greatly 
increased : 

Frank A. Anson, Milwaukee; William H. Austin, 
Milwaukee; Charles H. Baxter, Lancaster; George A. 
Buckstaff, Oshkosh; Byron A. Buffington. Eau Claire; 
Silas Bullard, Mcnasha; James O. Davidson. Soldiers' 
Grove; Charles W. Davis, Oshkosh; William H. Devos, 
Milwaukee; Fred A. Dennett, Port Washington; Abner 
S. Flagg, Edgerton; William M. Fogo, Richland Center; 
W'illiam H. Froehlich. Jackson; Charles T. Fisher, Wau- 



Unequal Representation in Conventions 101 

watosa; Albert R. Hall, Knapp; Frank E. Hurd, New 
Lisbon; William H. Hurlbut, Elkhorn; Andrew Jensen, 
Ogdensburg; David F. Jones, Sparta; William A. Jones, 
Mineral Point; Clarence A. Lamoreux, Ashland; Will- 
iam T. Lewis, Racine ; James J. McGillivray, Black River 
Falls; Andrew C. Mailer, DePere; Charles W. Merriman, 
Beloit; Oliver G. Munson, Viroqua; Clarence E. Peirce, 
Germania ; Solon W. Pierce, Friendship ; Henry C. Put- 
nam, Brodhead; George H. Ray, La Crosse; John F. Rey- 
nolds, Genoa Junction; Julius E. Roehr, Milwaukee; Gil- 
bert Rutherford, Lake Mills; Charles A. Stanley, Chip- 
pewa Falls; DeWayne Stebbins, Ahnapee; Jesse Stone, 
Watertown; James H. Stout, Menomonie; George W. 
Taylor, Marinette; Lyman W. Thayer, Ripon; John W. 
Thomas, Anson; Henry M. Thompson, Mosinee; Ernst 
G. Timme, Kenosha; Nathaniel B. Treat, Monroe; John 
M. True, Baraboo; Charles H. Welch, Milwaukee; 
Chauncey B. W'elton. Madison; John W. Whelan, Mon- 
dovi; William G. Wheeler, Janesville; John M. White- 
head, Janesville; Herman C. Wipperman, Grand Rapids; 
Levi Withee, La Crosse; George W. Wolff, Rhine; Demp- 
ster W. Woodworth, Ellsworth; George Wylie, Leeds. 

What citizen of Wisconsin will call these men "a rot- 
ten aggregation of Republican hacks"? 

As the presidential campaign of 1900 drew near Mr. 
Payne began to agitate the subject of a change in the 
representation at National Conventions from the basis of 
congressional districts to a basis which would be more 
just to the states that furnished the Republican majorities. 
This was not a new subject either with him or with other 
members of the National Committee, but the present time 
when there was to be no contest for the nomination for 



102 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

the presidency seemed an especially appropriate season for 
pushing the change. The vice of the existing system was 
that Southern states, where there was little or no Re- 
publican suffrage, had an equal representation in conven- 
tions with the Northern states where Republicans are 
largely in numerical ascendancy. Examples of the pres- 
ent inequality are given by Mr. Payne in a telegram sent 
November 30, 1899, to the New York Press at its request, 

which was of the following tenor : 

Can any one give a good reason why the states of Alabama, 
Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, 
casting 200,076 Republican votes at the last Presidential election, 
should have 124 delegates in the National Convention, while New 
Jersey, casting 221,367 Republican votes, should have but twenty 
delegates? In other words, the states mentioned have more than 
six times the voice in determining our nominee that New Jersey has, 
notwithstanding it is not conceivable that they can give a single 
electoral vote to the Republican candidate. The vote of New Jersey 
is almost essential to Republican success. Or why should these 
states have nearly twice the voice of New York with 819,838 Repub- 
lican votes? Is it just, fair and wise that the southern states re- 
ferred to should have fifty per cent, greater voice in the selection 
of a candidate than New York and New Jersey combined, when the 
vote in those two states is the determining factor in the election of 
our candidates? It is quite possible that these hopelessly minority 
states may be potential in naming a candidate who would be so ob- 
jectionable to some of the strong Republican states of the North as 
to make it impossible to succeed in the election. It is not to be sup- 
posed that the representatives of the southern states referred to can 
be in touch with the Republican sentiment in the North and that 
they can judge as intelligently or wisely what is best to be done as 
delegates representing great Republican strongholds. It is oppor- 
tune that this change in representation should be made at the com- 
ing Convention for the reason that there will be but one candidate 
for the nomination. It is impossible to secure' the change when 
several candidates are seeking the nomination. Is it not entirely 
fair and just that all Republicans should have an equal voice in the 
naming of our candidates? What good reason can be given that 
one Republican in Mississippi should have forty times as much voice 
in naming our candidate as a Republican in the State of Illinois? 



Unequal Representation in Conventions 103 

These illustrations exhibit forcibly the injustice to 
which the author of the despatch alluded, and justified 
him in the preparation of the following preamble and 
resolution, which he anticipated presenting to the Na- 
tional Committee at its approaching meeting : 

Whereas, The present basis of representation in Republican 
National Conventions is unjust and unequal, and this injustice should 
be remedied; therefore 

Resolved, That the Republican National Committee recommends 
to the next National Convention that a new basis of representation 
be established, as follows : 

Each state to be entitled to four delegates at large, and one ad- 
ditional delegate for each ten thousand votes, or majority fraction 
thereof, cast at the last preceding Presidential election for Repub- 
lican electors; and four delegates from each organized territory and 
the District of Columbia ; and be it 

Further Resolved, That in allotting delegates to the states as 
provided, aside from delegates at large, they shall be divided as 
near as practicable among the several Congressional Districts of the 
states, the basis shall be the same, and where it is necessary to unite 
one or more Congressional Districts for the purpose of carrying out 
this resolution, contiguous districts may be united. 

These tentative expressions were mailed in advance 
to the other members of the National Committee and 
were given large publicity in the press. Among the com- 
mitteemen there was wide, but not unanimous approval. 
But in the newspapers in certain sections, especially 
throughout the south, there was forthwith great uproar. 
The Weekly Press of Mobile, Alabama, a Republican 
paper edited by a negro, headed its protest, "Attempted 
Outrage," and averred that Mr. Payne was trying to drive 
the colored voters out of the Republican party. Another 
Southern paper — and these two are samples of many — 
took for the text of its violent objection the phrase, 
"Freezing Out the Black Delegates." The point was 
made with great plausibility that if the Republican votes 



104 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

willing to be cast, or actually cast, in Southern states, 
could really be cast, or could honestly be counted as cast, 
there would be no inequality or injustice in the present 
basis of representation and that it would be wrong to ac- 
cept the count — notoriously incorrect — furnished by brow- 
beating and bulldozing Democratic inspectors as the test 
to regulate the basis of representation in Republican con- 
ventions. 

Moreover, questions of expediency and policy urged 
in opposition to the change: To diminish the strength in 
convention in any minority state is to discourage the 
struggle for supremacy, to humiliate the faithful, to ac- 
knowledge a weakness that time might overcome, to place 
a premium upon membership in the opposing party, to 
narrow the chances of party success in future emergencies, 
to make despondent those contending for political prin- 
ciples without the present hope of political reward. 

Considerations like these were very potent. When the 
National Committee met in Washington, December 16, 
1899, while not abating his desire, or yielding the argu- 
ment, Mr. Payne found that Air. McKinley, who was to 
be the only candidate for president before the forthcoming 
convention, and Senator Hanna, chairman of the National 
Committee, were opposed to the presentation of the resolu- 
tions and that committeemen who had favored them in 
private correspondence, had been stormed into opposition 
by letters and telegrams from every source. As a conse- 
quence Mr. Payne, feeling the futility of the present effort, 
addressed the Committee as follows : 

I ask the Committee to honor me with its attention for a few 
minutes for a statement somewhat personal in its nature. 

It is well known by members of the Committee, both from the 
public press and correspondence with them, that I have intended to 



Unequal Representation in Conventions 105 



offer and advocate the adoption by the Committee of a resolution 
recommending to the next Republican National Convention a change 
in the basis of representation in subsequent conventions. I some 
time since gave to the press, for publication and discussion, the reso- 
lution which I had prepared to present to the Committee upon the 
subject. 

Briefly stated, it proposed to make the National Convention, 
which nominates Republican tickets and formulates Republican plat- 
forms, fairly representative of those who vote for Republican plat- 
forms and Republican principles. The proposition has received the 
support of almost the entire Republican press of the country, and I 
have reason to believe that upon its merits, as well as upon grounds 
of expediency, it has the support of a large number of this Com- 
mittee. 

I have not in the slightest degree changed my conviction as to its 
justice, nor have I the slightest doubt as to its expediency. Within 
a day or two it has encountered opposition which I had no reason to 
anticipate, including that of the Chairman of this Committee. It is 
sufficient for me to say that out of my regard for his opinion, and 
the opinions and wishes of others high in the councils of the party, 
to which, as a loyal Republican, I feel bound to defer, I am con- 
strained not to offer the resolution. 

I thank the Committee for its indulgence, and I have made 
this statement only in obvious justice to myself. 

What is further to be said upon this topic will here be 
gathered : 

The Review of Reviews thus commented :* 

In the National Republican conventions Mr. Payne has been the 
chief advocate of a very desirable reform yet to be accomplished, 
namely, the apportionment of membership on the basis of the actual 
party vote as given in the previous national election. This would 
exclude nine-tenths of the delegates from the far South. 

The subject was more quietly agitated between the 
meeting of the National Committee just mentioned and 
the opening of the Republican Convention, in Philadel- 
phia, in June, 1900. At this convention Senator Matthew 
S. Quay, of Pennsylvania, called the attention of the mem- 



♦Number for January, 1900, Volume XXV, page 20. 



106 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

bers to the injustice of the present basis of representation, 
but at the urgent solicitation of influential fellow members 
of the convention he did not insist upon immediate action, 
and the matter was again postponed. 

At this convention, and since, prominent Republicans 
from Rhode Island have been forward with a proposed 
change in the basis of representation founded upon Mr. 
Payne's plan, but providing for a reduction in the basis 
of representation only in those states where the Republican 
vote is unterrorized, and free to be counted. In agitating 
the change in the basis of representation, the mantle of 
Mr. Payne has fallen upon other members of the National 
Committee. 



McKlNLEY AND ROOSEVELT 107 



CHAPTER XIII 



s^ci&inlep ana !Roo0cViclt 

As the time for the National Convention of 1900 drew 
on apace two things were very evident : one, that Mr. Mc- 
Kinley was the certain candidate to succeed himself; the 
other, that the name of the vice-presidential nominee was 
as uncertain as that of his senior was certain. Mr. Payne 
was very anxious that the nomination for the second place 
should go to Mr. Elihu Root, of New York, who was then 
in the Cabinet as Secretary of War. His solicitude in 
this particular is evident from despatches in the New 
York papers in January, 1900, of which the following are 
specimens : 

From New York Tribune, January 11, 1900: 
Milwaukee, Wis., Jan. 10.— Henry C. Payne, National Repub- 
lican Committeeman for Wisconsin, to-day received a letter from 
Secretary Root, in which the latter states that he is not, and will 
not be, a candidate for Vice-President of the United States. In his 
letter Mr. Root expresses the belief that it is far more important to 
the country, the Administration and the Republican party at this 
time, that he should continue to attend to the business of the War 
office — not that there are not plenty of other men who could well 
discharge the duties of Secretary of War, but having spent five or 
six months in becoming familiar with the subject, no other man 
could step in and take up the work without going through the same 
training. 

From New York Sun, January 11, 1900: 
Washington, Jan. 10. — Secretary Root this afternoon confirmed 
the report that he had written a letter to Henry C. Payne, of Wis- 
consin, Vice-Chairman of the National Republican Committee, declin- 
ing to accept a nomination for Vice-President. Secretary Root's 



108 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



reason for his declination is that he believes that he can be of more 
service to the country, the Republican party and the Administration 
by remaining at his desk in the War Department and devoting him- 
self to military matters. He said to The Sun representative : 

"Important questions are before the War Department, questions 
which cannot be settled for some little time, and while the President 
could certainly get some good and able man for the position of Sec- 
retary of War, no one could come into the Department and acquire 
familiarity with matters before the department and questions under 
consideration for the Army without going through the same educa- 
tion that I have. Should I accept the Vice-Presidency I would be 
leaving my work in the Department unfinished. I consider it far 
more important for the country, the Administration and for the 
Republican party for me to stay in the War Department and attend 
to my work here. Having these reasons in mind I wrote to Mr. 
Payne, explaining to him that I could not accept the Vice-Presi- 
dency." 

The letter to Mr. Payne was written about three weeks ago. 
Mr. Payne communicated with Secretary Root, asking if there was 
any objection to its being published. Secretary Root replied that 
there was no objection to stating its purport. 

Mr. Root having thus eliminated himself from possible 
candidature, Mr. Payne's thoughts were directed towards 
Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, then serving as Governor of the 
state of New York. Three considerations were dominant 
in Mr. Payne's mind; one, that the vice-presidential can- 
didate should be selected from the oscillating and import- 
ant state of New York; a second, that such candidate 
should be able to unite the warring factions which in that 
slate were dividing and weakening the Republican party; 
third, that the vice-presidential candidate should be him- 
self strong presidential timber, in case any untoward ac- 
cident should befall the chief — a melancholy contingency 
that actually happened. In late January and early Febru- 
ary, 1900, correspondence and personal interviews oc- 
curred between Governor Roosevelt and Mr. Payne, and 
the latter, in a visit which he made to Albany at the 



McKlNLEY AND ROOSEVELT 109 



former's telegraphed request, strongly urged upon the 
Governor to permit the use of his name in the approach- 
ing: convention. But at that time Governor Roosevelt 
steadily refused, preferring the strenuous activity of the 
gubernatorial office at Albany, to the comparative quietude 
and serenity of the vice-presidency. 

The intimacy then formed between these two men had 
its later important results. Although acquainted and even 
personal friends before, it was these letters and these con- 
fidential talks that made each man a great admirer of the 
other. Therefore when, early in the spring of 1900, 
efforts were initiated by opponents of Mr. Payne in Wis- 
consin to exclude him from the National Committee, 
Governor Roosevelt wrote the following letter to the Mil- 
waukee Journal, which had requested his opinion of this 

move : 

Executive Chamber, Albany, N. Y., March 12, 1900.— Editor 
The Milwaukee Journal, Milwaukee, Wis. I most earnestly hope 
that Mr. Payne will be re-elected member of the National Republican 
Committee and cordially endorse every word that Senator Spooner 
has said about him. I believe that every Republican that has the 
welfare of the party sincerely at heart feels that it would be little 
short of calamity if Mr. Payne were not to continue to take part in 
directing the national interests of the party. It has been my good 
fortune to be thrown with him somewhat intimately. I have felt a 
constantly increasing respect for him, not only for his keen ability 
and insight, but for his sense of the real national needs — for his in- 
tense appreciation that only by serving these real national needs can 
any party really deserve success. 

Philadelphia was the place fixed by the National Com- 
mittee for the meeting in 1900 of the presidential conven- 
tion of the Republican party, and June 19 as the opening 
dav. Mr. Pavne, as one of the sub-committee of the Na- 
tional Committee, was early on the ground for the pre- 
liminary work. Indeed, he had been in Philadelphia on 



110 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

June 10, to attend a banquet given to the committeemen 
by the Young Republican Club of that city. At this 
gathering Mr. Payne made an earnest speech intended for 
a far wider audience than listened to it, cautioning the 
party throughout the country against over-confidence, de- 
ploring the factional fights in the party which threatened 
its success and urging that new issues now confronting 
the party be met resolutely and squarely. This speech was 
broadly copied and commented upon. The Democrats 
exulted that so shrewd a political observer should feel so 
despondent, some Republicans claimed that Mr. Payne 
had the blues, while others declared that he attached too 
great an importance to petty discords in Albany, Saint 
Louis and Milwaukee. The truth is, that Mr. Pavne — 
wise general that he was — was following his usual custom 
of bracing the soldiers for the fight and of warning them 
that the time to exult was when, as victors, they took their 
armor off. 

Following this gathering Mr. Payne was busy by 
letter and telegram in declining with great positiveness 
any use of his name for the vice-presidential nomination 
— a use which not a few admiring friends were insisting 
upon. 

At the meetings of the National Committee held just 
previous to the opening of the convention, Mr. Payne pre- 
sided in the absence of Chairman Hanna, who was late in 
reaching Philadelphia. 

The nomination of Mr. McKinley for the presidency, 
so long foreshadowed, was a comparatively tame affair. 
The uncertainty about the candidate for vice-president 
kept committeemen and delegates alike alert. Governor 
Roosevelt was in attendance upon the convention as a 



McKlNLEY AND ROOSEVELT 111 

delegate. During the first day, June 10, he had main- 
tained the same opposition to the vice-presidential n imina- 
tion which he hail exhibited months before in privacy to 
Mr. Payne and which he had consistently since then main- 
tained. As the New York Tribune printed during the 

convention : 

Governor Roosevelt was perfectly honest and above board in 
the position he has taken and held, that he did not want the vice- 
presidential office. He was absolutely unprepared for the over- 
whelming demand for his nomination he was to be called on to face, 
and it is not too much to say that he was absolutely overcome by it. 
As delegation after delegation came to him and urged him to run, 
little by little it was borne in on him that he must respond to this 
demand of the country for his services. 

Governor Roosevelt, so long and so firmly declining, 
lad accepted. Senator Cullom, of Illinois, was asked the 
reason of this and he answered : "The broadest reason 
possible. He yields to the wishes of the people of the 
United States." Was this chance, fate? Nay, the Hand 
that in infinite wisdom did not interpose to shield the 
illustrious McKinley from the nameless assassin's weapon, 
prepared, through the clamorous persistence of these dele- 
gates, his no less illustrious successor ! 

What happened in the Wisconsin delegation in the 
morning of June 20, is thus described in the New York 

Evening Post of the same day : 

At eleven o'clock this morning, before Gov. Roosevelt had ar- 
rived at his headquarters, news came of a blow at the Governor's 
hope of escape, aimed by Henry C. Payne and the Wisconsin dele- 
gation. Wisconsin had a meeting, and hardly were the doors closed 
when Mr. Payne arose, and in a vehement speech declared that 
Roosevelt would be the nominee of the Convention. "It is time this 
factional business in New York State should be settled from the 
outside," he said. "This is a national, not a state gathering. We 
are here to nominate a national ticket, not to dicker over New York 
State's personal affairs." (Applause.) Then, raising his hand, he 



112 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

said in an impressive and impassioned manner : "Before Wisconsin 
is reached on the roll-call, willingly or unwillingly Theodore Roose- 
velt will have received 75 per cent, of the votes of the Convention. 
I move that Wisconsin join the popular column and vote for, not 
New York's son, but the nation's son, Theodore Roosevelt." 

Amid a burst of applause the resolution was adopted by a unan- 
imous vote. Mr. Payne, when spoken to after the meeting, said: 
"I believe that everything points to Roosevelt's nomination, and I 
don't think he dares refuse it." 

McKinley and Roosevelt being the nominees of the 
Convention, it became the duty of the National Committee 
to undertake the task of electing them. Mr. Payne had 
been unanimously named by the Wisconsin delegation to 
succeed himself upon the National Committee, and on 
June 21, Chairman Hanna of that Committee appointed 
the following as the new Executive Committee: Mr. 
Payne; Mr. Joseph H. Manley, of Maine; Mr. Nathan B. 
Scott, of West Virginia ; Mr. Harry S. New, of Indiana, 
and Mr. George L. Shoup, of Idaho.* Mr. Payne was 
in charge of the western headquarters in Chicago, and 
from there the work of the campaign was directed. Into 
its details this narrative need not go. It is sufficient to 
write that Mr. Payne followed his own note of warning, 
that he assumed no confident air and uttered no vain 
boastings, that the voters were supplied with documents 
and satisfied with speeches, that the enemy's moves were 
checked and his plans thwarted, and that — the fight be- 
ing 1 over — the issue was awaited with the serenitv that 
knows no fear. 

When the votes were counted in November, 1900, it 
was recorded that the plurality of President McKinley 

*A11 the members of this committee were warm personal as well 
as political friends of Mr. Payne. No more sorrowful letters reached 
Mrs. Payne upon the death of her husband than came from Messrs. 
Manley, Scott and New. 



McKlNLEY AND ROOSEVELT 113 

over Mr. Bryan was 861,373 votes; that in the electoral 
college the former had 292 votes and the latter 155 votes; 
that the former carried the state of Wisconsin by a plural- 
ity of 106,597 votes, the county of Milwaukee by a plural- 
ity of 9,194 votes, and the city of Milwaukee by a 
plurality of 6,507 votes. The seven Southern states men- 
tioned in Mr. Payne's telegram to the New York Press 
(see page 102), Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, 
Louisiana, Mississippi and South Carolina, cast a joint 
vote of 166,298 ballots for McKinley and Roosevelt, 
while the state of Wisconsin alone cast 265,760 votes for 
the same candidates. 

Soon after the inauguration of President McKinley, 
on March 9, 1901, Mr. and Mrs. Payne left New York 
on a trip to the Mediterranean and Black Seas. On their 
return trip they reached Naples, April 22, 1901, where 
they left their vessel and traveled leisurely in Italy, France 
and England. 

This trip and consequent freedom from responsibility 
and care had been rendered obligatory by the impaired 
condition of Mr. Payne's health. For some five years or 
more he had been subject to fainting spells and to attacks 
believed by physicians to be epileptical in their nature, and 
to be due to indigestion. These attacks had greatly weak- 
ened his constitution and caused his friends to view with 
regret any assumption of responsibilities which gratified 
ambition might induce him to accept. 

The visit of President McKinley to the Pan-American 
Exposition at Buffalo, New York, his assassination, his 
heroic contest with death, his defeat, and the administer- 
ing of the oath of office in Buffalo to Theodore Roosevelt, 
his successor — these events belong to history and need 
not delay these pages. 



114 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



CHAPTER XIV 



Postma0ter = General 

In obedience to his determination to accept the Cabinet 
of his predecessor and to retain the same until the mem- 
bers should themselves desire to withdraw, the position of 
postmaster-general continued with President McKinley's 
appointee, Mr. Charles Emory Smith, under the adminis- 
tration of President Roosevelt, until the close of the year 
1901. Mr. Smith then resigning, the way was open for 
the President to name a cabinet officer of his own choice, 
and his friend, Mr. Payne, was named. The appointment 
was decided upon in December, 190 1 ; he was nominated 
and the Senate confirmed the nomination January 8, 1902, 
and the oath of office was administered by Chief Justice 
Fuller, of the Supreme Court of the United States, Janu- 
ary 15, 1902. At the ceremony were present the Presi- 
dent and members of his cabinet, and other officials, and 
also Mrs. Roosevelt and Mrs. Payne. The assistant post- 
masters-general when Air. Payne's term began were Mr. 
William M. Johnson, Mr. William S. Shallenberger, Mr. 
Edwin C. Madden and Mr. Joseph L. Bristow. Mr. 
Francis H. Whitney,* of Milwaukee, was private secre- 
tary to the Postmaster-General. Mr. Payne's Washing- 

*Mr. Whitney began his service with Mr. Payne April 18. 18Q2, 
as stenographer and clerk and was for many years his confidential 
secretary in Milwaukee before the theatre of his valued services 
was transferred to Washington. 



Postmaster-General 115 

ton residence was at Number 1523 H Street, an historical 
house now connected with the Arlington Hotel. 

I should expand this volume to a ponderous octavo 
should I attempt to print the letters and telegrams of con- 
gratulation which from every side poured in upon the 
newly appointed officer, whom his intimates now slyly 
began to dub General. While most of these missives were 
full of hope and promise for the future, there ran through 
some the minor note of sorrow, that with health impaired 
and constitution far from rugged, Mr. Payne should 
venture to assume an office so burdened with responsi- 
bilities, and so perplexing with details. Yet with the 
ambitions of his manhood now fully realized Mr. Payne 
was in no frame of mind to retreat, and he entered upon 
his arduous duties in happiness and with zeal. 

His long incumbency of the post office in Milwaukee 
was no mean schooling for his more exalted position. 
The files of the United States Official Postal Guide be- 
ginning with the month of February, 1902, exhibit the 
vigor and efficiency of the new chief. During his ad- 
ministration parcels post conventions were concluded be- 
tween the United States and Bolivia. Japan, Norway and 
the colony of Hong Kong, the parcels post convention 
with Germany modified in the interest of American 
citizens, and a postal convention concluded with Cuba. 
In June, 1902, the entire postal service was grouped into 
fifteen geographical divisions, each under the charge of 
its own inspector, and the rural free delivery system was 
organized into eight divisions.* By later orders the de- 



*See the R ary, 1903, Volume XXVII, 

page 55, for an le upon the rural free del; 

.e's administration. 



116 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

tails of this latter service were regulated to the end that 
boxes properly shielded from the elements should be used, 
and that carriers should be prompt and be not impeded 
by private errands. Among the improvements made were 
such as these: provision was made for the redemption of 
uncanceled and unserviceable postal cards ; the position of 
physician, except in the largest post offices, was abolished ; 
the tone of post offices was improved by prohibiting loaf- 
ing, disorderliness and profanity about the buildings; rec- 
ommendation was made to Congress to consolidate mail 
matter of the third and fourth classes as blending into each 
other; an order was formulated that husband and wife 
should not both draw salaries from the public treasury, a 
woman employee in the postal department being expected 
to resign upon her marriage with another employe; pro- 
vision was made that reading matter in raised characters 
should be carried through the mails free for the benefit of 
the blind ; approval was given of the innovation of plac- 
ing the representation of the head of a woman upon a post- 
age stamp, by accepting that of Martha Washington for 
the eight cents stamp ; post offices were established on the 
canal zone at Panama ; frequent orders were issued for- 
bidding the use of the mails by, or the benefits of the 
money order system for, proprietors of lottery schemes, 
whether in the United States or abroad ; a movement was 
inaugurated looking to the exclusion from the mails of' 
literature promoting the sale of certain kinds of patent 
medicines and nostrums; regulations were provided for 
the mailing of identical pieces of mail of the third and 
fourth classes without the affixing of stamps, providing 
postage had been prepaid; corrections were initiated of the 
abuses growing out of the overcrowding of the mails with 



Postmaster-General 117 

second class matter; mailing-tube systems were installed 
in some of the larger cities; the regulations of the civil 
service relative to promotions were enlarged especially in 
fourth class offices; economy of administration was en- 
forced ; adherence to rules enjoined, fidelity recognized, 
dishonesty punished.* An innovation proposed by Mr. 
Payne that letter boxes be placed on street cars was op- 
posed by labor unions on the ground that this would give 
street cars the sanctity of government mail carriers which 
might lead to federal interference with trolley strikes. 

On June 6, 1902, Secretary of the Treasury Shaw, 
Postmaster-General Payne and Attorney-General Knox 
were appointedf by the Congress a commission to acquire 
a site in the city of New York for the erection of a fire- 
proof building for post office purposes. Several visits 
were made by this commission to the city of New York 
in the winter of 1902-3. It was evident, however, not 
only that the present office in the lower portion of the city 
must be retained, but also that more than one additional 
structure was needed to satisfy the enormous business of 
the borough of Manhattan. As a consequence the com- 
mission recommended the purchase of a site on Eighth 
Avenue between Thirty-first and Thirty-third Streets, and 
also the lease for twenty-five years, with an option for a 

*For the various phases of litigation growing- out of some of 
Mr. Payne's improvements, see Chicago Business College v. Payne, 
20 Appeal Cases, D. C. 606; Payne v. United States ex rel. National 
Railway Publishing, Company, 20 Appeal Cases, D. C. 581; Payne v. 
Bates & Guild Company, 22 Appeal Cases, D. C. 250; Payne V. 
Houghton, 22 Appeal Cases, D. C. 234; Houghton v. Payne, 194 
United States 88; Smith v. Payne, 194 U. S. 104. See also Letter of 
the Postmaster-General to the Senate, February 26, 1902; Review 
of Reviews, January, 1902, XXV, 20; Review of Reviews, January, 
1903. XX VII". 14. 

fSee Section 13, Chapter 1036, Statutes of 1902, 57th Congress, 
First Session. 



118 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

like period additional, of a site within the space bounded 
by Lexington and Madison Avenues, Forty-second and 
Forty-sixth Streets. These sites were selected on account 
of their contiguity to the terminals of the Pennsylvania 
and New York Central Railways respectively, and with 
the expectation that commodious buildings would be 
erected thereon directly over the tracks of these railways 
so that mail could be loaded and unloaded without wagon 
service. The plan contemplated that these two new offices 
with the present down town office should constitute "a 
three-in-one post office," the three structures being so con- 
nected by tubes that they would work practically as one. 
Congress was satisfied with the work and the selection of 
the commission and made appropriations* for the purchase 
and leasing respectively of the sites chosen. But Mr. 
Payne was not to survive to see even the beginnings of 
these gigantic improvements. 

Mr. George B. Cortelyou, Postmaster-General in suc- 
cession to Mr. Payne, thus closes his annual report for the 
year ended June 30, 1905 : 

Of the seven Postmasters-General whom I have had the privilege 
of knowing while they were at the head of this Department, three 
are now dead. I served under two of these — Wilson S. Bissell and 
William L. Wilson — and was fortunate in being intimately asso- 
ciated with them. I see no impropriety in bearing testimony at this 
time to the loyalty and devotion with which they strove for the 
betterment of the postal service. However men may differ as to 
some features of their policies, there can be no question that they 
strove faithfully to maintain the best traditions of the Department. 
The third — Henry C. Payne — though embarrassed by grievous physi- 
cal afflictions, carried the burden of a prolonged and exhausting 
investigation with self-sacrificing fidelity, and since I have had charge 
of the Department there has frequently come to my notice official 
evidence of the progress made during his administration. 



*By Chapter 1759, Statutes of 1904, 'page 434, 58th Congress, 
Second Session. 



Postmaster-General 119 

In a speech delivered in the Senate, April 9, 1904, by 
Senator Spooner, upon consideration of the post office ap- 
propriation bill for the year ending June 30, 1905, the 
following- words were uttered by him : 

Postmaster-General Payne is a citizen of Wisconsin. At the 
time of his appointment he was not a candidate for the position, nor 
did I seek it for him, although I knew it had been the ambition 
of his life to be Postmaster-General. I have known him many years, 
Mr. President, and during those years he has afforded so many 
evidences of the possession of rare executive ability as to place 
himself in that regard beyond reach of successful challenge. He 
came into the Postmaster-Generalship unhappily handicapped to some 
extent by ill health, but I do not hesitate to say here that no man 
ever entered the Cabinet with a higher ambition to render good 
service to the public, and to achieve the distinction which able and 
faithful service in high place brings to one who renders it, than he. 
His sense of responsibility, his fidelity to duty, led him to disregard 
all thought of personal comfort and even of health in co-operating 
with Mr. Bristow in every possible way. He spent the long summer 
at his desk, without regard to hours, at a personal risk, which, when 
assumed by a soldier, brings with it credit and honor. 

Just at this point a few words are necessary concern- 
ing the relation of Mr. Payne to the reform of the civil 
service. Some of those particularly devoted to this re- 
form have been accustomed to stigmatize Mr. Payne as a 
"politician," as one managing the huge machinery of his 
great office to advance his party friends and to overthrow 
his foes. To such stigmatizers I desire to commend the 
consideration of the following document, lengthy, to be 
sure, and perhaps dry, but worthy of perusal : 

Report of Civil Service Commissioners Procter and Cooley to the 
President, June 24, 1903, respecting irregularities which occurred 
four years ago in the Washington post office and, to an extent, in the 
Post Office Department at Washington; together with detailed state- 
ment relating to certain irregularities and abuses which have been 
cured by the aid and co-operation of Postmaster-General Payne. 

June 24, 1903. 
The Preside)', t. 

Sir : In response to your request, this commission makes re- 



120 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

port respecting irregularities which occurred four years ago in the 
Washington post office and to an extent in the Post Office Depart- 
ment at Washington, as follows : 

1. Whether any of these irregularities have occurred during 
your administration without a prompt stop being put to them. 

Answer: No. See inclosed memorandum showing the prompt 
stoppage of these irregularities and the ways in which the competi- 
tive system has been bettered and extended in the postal service dur- 
ing your administration. 

2. Whether the present postmaster at Washington is, in our 
judgment, responsible for the wrongdoing which occurred four years 
ago. 

Answer : The commission does not regard him as responsible 
therefor, inasmuch as he was carrying out the orders of his superior 
officers. 

3. Whether there are now in the Post Office Department or the 
post office at Washington any persons illegally employed or who 
should be removed from office. 

Answer : No, with the exception of the person occupying the 
excepted position of finance clerk, who is performing alien duties. 

The evil of assigning laborers to classified work is the growth 
of years. The registration regulations adopted and the determina- 
tion to fill all vacancies in positions of laborers doing classified work 
by certification from the registers of eligibles will prevent this evil 
in the future. 

The relations of the commission with the Post Office Depart- 
ment and with the postal service throughout the country are more 
satisfactory from a civil service standpoint than ever before, as shown 
by the detailed statement filed with this, relating to certain irregular- 
ities and abuses which have been cured by the aid and co-operation of 
Postmaster-General Payne. 

We have the honor to be, your obedient servants, 

John R. Procter, 
Alford W. Cooley, 

Commissioners. 

Since Postmaster-General Payne has been in charge of the Post 
Office Department the following betterments have been made : 

In October last the Department joined the commission in estab- 
lishing a regulation requiring persons brought into the classified 
service by the establishment of free delivery at a post office to pass 
an examination before transfer to other post offices. 

The Department has assisted the commission in perfecting the 
service records of post offices and adopted a system of reporting to 



Postmaster-General 121 

the commission directly from the Department all changes occurring 
in the status of employes in the post office service. 

The appointment of laborers for assignment to classified work 
has ceased. 

The Washington postmaster states that General Payne has never 
directed, or even suggested, the appointment of laborers in the 
Washington post office, as had formerly been done. 

Shortly after General Payne became Postmaster-General he in- 
itiated the policy of continuing fourth class postmasters beyond the 
term of four years, and not removing them except for some reason 
other than political, thus making their terms of office in fact, as they 
are in law, independent of changes of Administration. This is one 
of the most important advances which the merit system has made in 
recent years. 

The Post Office Department has made a much larger number 
of appointments through open competitive examinations under the 
civil service rules in the same space of time than ever before, and the 
proportion of reinstatements and transfers has decreased. From Au- 
gust, 1900, to December, 190 1, immediately preceding General 
Payne's appointment, 7,362 appointments were made through com- 
petition in local post offices. During the like period of seventeen 
months immediately following, 9.854 such appointments were made, 
an increase of almost 2,500. So, also, in the Post Office Department 
during the same period preceding General Payne's appointment 50 
appointments were made through competition, while in the like period 
following 119 were made. 

The number of temporary appointments at post offices without 
examination has been reduced. In the seventeen months preceding 
his appointment 1,131 such appointments were made, as against 929 
in the seventeen months following. Prior to May, 1902, the Depart- 
ment made temporary appointments outside the examinations in post 
offices in all cases in which there were not as many as three eligibles 
on the register. It was not until General Payne became Postmaster- 
General that the commission could get the Department to consent to 
a change in this practice, though repeated conferences were had 
with the Department with that end in view. 

General Payne agreed with the commission that the rules should 
be changed, and since May 31, 1902, temporary appointments are 
made from the register. The commission found that it was difficult 
to secure eligibles at certain offices, notwithstanding due announce- 
ment had been made, and - to the Department the advisability 
of utilizing as far as possible eligibles on the departmental and rail- 
way-mail registers. In this the Department acquiesced. The result 
of this action on the part of the Department has been to materially 
lessen the number of temporary appointments. 



122 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



withstanding public announcement of examinations, it was 
difficult at some second-class post offices to secure enough eligibles 
to meet the needs of the service. It was thought that this was 
occasioned, in some measure, by failure on the part of the postmasters 
to give encouragement to applicants. Upon inviting the Depart- 
ment's attention to this matter, a circular was issued to postmasters 
directing that all proper means be taken to encourage persons to 
enter the examinations, and that they should in no way dissuade 
applicants or use means to induce them to decline appointment after 
certification. This will a more general co-operation by post- 

masters in carrying out the rules and of lessening the number of 
temporary appointments. 

The Department has also agreed that for the 900 smaller post 
offices certificates for appointment shall be issued directly by the 
commission, instead of by local secretaries of examining boards, to 
enable the commission to deal more directly with the Department and 
expedite the public business. 

Although all the paragraphs of the foregoing report 
invite the reader's careful attention, two sentences there- 
from I desire to cull out from their fine type and to com- 
ment upon briefly. They read : 

Shortly after General Payne became Postmaster-General he in- 
itiated the policy of continuing fourth-class postmasters beyond the 
term of four years, and not removing them except for some reason 
other than political, thus making their terms of office in fact, as they 
are in law, independent of changes of Administration. This is one 
of the most important advances which the merit system has made in 
recent years. 

This change was at first bitterly resented by those 
congressmen who feared that with the consequent loss of 
patronage would ensue/the loss of their claim upon votes. 
But as the innovation worked and the law-makers experi- 
enced freedom from petty strifes of "outs" against the 
"ins," and found how much more time remained to them 
for the ierf.trnir.nce of their legitimate duties, they be- 
gan gladly to accept the new betterment, and some had the 
grace frankly to thank the Postmaster-General for the 
change. 

And yet this same Postmaster-General had formerly 
and frequently and openly been hailed as the head and 
front of spoils and the spoils system ! 



Investigation Post Office Department 123 



CHAPTER XV 



Kntoestigatton of t&e Post SDffice Department 

The subject of a minute inquiry into the affairs of this 
department and into the method of doing business therein 
was first broached in December, 1902, in conversations 
between the Postmaster-General and Mr. Eugene F. Loud, 
member of the House of Representatives from California 
and chairman of the House Committee on the post office 
and post-roads. As a result of these interviews which ran 
far into the succeeding month, it was agreed that the 
congressional appropriation for miscellaneous items in the 
post office department should be increased from the cus- 
tomary estimate of one thousand dollars, to the sum of 
six thousand dollars, thus providing ample funds for a 
wide and deep probe. 

As the newspapers antagonistic to the Republican ad- 
ministration and to Mr. Payne, often asserted that he was 
hostile to the investigation and attempted to thwart it. it 
is proper to record here that he assisted at its very initia- 
tion. The following statement bearing upon this point, 
dated August 21, 1903, is from the pen of Mr. Jacob H. 
Bromwell, of Cincinnati. Ohio, who was a representative 
from December 3, 1894, to March 4, 1903, and who at 
the period under consideration was a member of the com- 
mittee on the post office and post-roads : 

I recall very distinctly that in the preparation of the last appro- 
priation bill and before the sub-committee (of which I was a mem- 
ber) had commenced work upon it, in a private conversation with Mr. 



124 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

Loud he informed me that he had discussed with the Postmaster- 
General the advisability of a more thorough investigation of the 
Post Office Department than had been possible in the usual course 
before, and that the Postmaster-General was very earnest in his 
desire that the item for special inspection, included in the "Miscel- 
laneous Items" of the appropriation bill, should be increased to 
such an amount as would give him ample means for this purpose, 
and suggested that the item be increased from one thousand to six 
thousand dollars. 

Mr. Loud stated that it was thought advisable that no public 
attention should be drawn to this proposed increase in the item, for 
the reason that it might serve as a warning and put upon t h l- i r 
guard any employes or attaches of the Department, or others, who 
might have been guilty of irregularities, and that it was to the pub- 
lic interest that the increase should be put in the bill as quietly as 
possible, so as to attract little or no attention or comment. 

It was understood that this investigation was to be very thor- 
ough and might be quite prolonged, reaching over a number of 
months, and that, while the appropriation would not itself become 
available until after July ist, 1903, yet it would be necessary to have 
this increase in order to continue whatever work might be started 
in this line before that date. 

In accordance with this suggestion of Mr. Loud, he and I put 
the item in the appropriation bill, as prepared by the sub-committee, 
with a mere statement that it was desired by the Department, but 
giving no explanation. The sub-committee had such confidence in 
Mr. Loud that without inquiry they endorsed this increase, it went 
into the bill, was reported to the committee, there passed without any 
comment, and was enacted into law. 

I know positively that this request and the proposed investiga- 
tion had been determined upon by the Postmaster-General long be- 
fore there had been any newspaper or other comment upon possible 
irregularities in the Department. 

The investigation having- been determined upon, the 
details were frequently discussed by Air. Payne with 
President Roosevelt. Two things were by the President, 

Mr. Payne and Mr. Loud deemed wise: that the investiga- 
tion should be delayed until the adjournment of Congress, 
and that it should be conducted by Mr. Joseph L. Bristow, 
then Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General, who had in 
1899 investigated the Cuban postal frauds. 



Investigation Tost Office Department 125 



Congress having adjourned March 4, 1903, Mr. Payne 
formulated his instructions to Mr. Bristow in a letter 
dated March 7. 1903. These instructions were accom- 
panied by oral suggestions brought out in an interview 
between these two officials with President Roosevelt. In 
a second interview among these three it was emphatically 
understood that the inquiry was to proceed searchingly 
and vigorously under the direct charge of Mr. Bristow 
and that all of the inspectors necessary to a thorough 
pursuit were to be called to his aid. 

Coincident with these acts was a demand by the Post- 
master-General for the resignation of James N. Tyner, 
then Assistant Attorney-General for the Post Office De- 
partment. At this time Mr. Tyner was seventy-seven 
years of age and the Department had long been em- 
barrassed by reason of his helpless condition, his failure 
of executive ability and his inaction in the efforts of the 
Department to ascertain the truth or falsity of certain in- 
sinuations and charges against the integrity of the De- 
partment. The resignation and its acceptance bear date 
March 8, 1903, to take effect at a somewhat later period. 
Although the evils supposed to exist and afterwards 
brought to view long antedated Mr. Payne's tenure of 
office and belonged chiefly to the period of the war with 
Spain, yet the suspicions against members of the Depart- 
ment long in the service, high in authority, with sup- 
posedly honored names and unstained reputations, dis- 
tressed Mr. Payne greatly and accentuated his long exist- 
ing physical ailments, but never abated his determination 
that the searchlight should be clear, penetrating and un- 
sparing. 



126 Henry Clay Payxe : A Life 

The matter being under way, Mr. Payne, on the urgent 
advice of his physician, left Washington, March 10, 1903, 
for a trip of rehabilitation in the West Indies. On April 
13 he returned to his post somewhat refreshed by his in- 
action and finding great need for his recuperated strength. 

It appeared that, during Mr. Payne's absence, George 
W. Beavers, General Superintendent, Division of Salary 
and Allowance, afterwards indicted, had resigned his 
office March 31, 1903, and his resignation had been ac- 
cepted by the acting Postmaster-General. It appeared 
also that an impression was industriously circulated that 
Mr. Payne was not in sympathy with the investigation. 
This impression was so pervading and so untrue that Mr. 
Payne felt moved to issue a brief public statement. It was 
prepared on April 13, 1903, the day of his return from 
his trip, and appeared the next day in the Washington 
Post. It was as follows : 

During the months of January and February information and 
reports reached me, which I deemed it for the public interest to 
investigate, and I, personally, gathered such information and facts 
as would enable the proper officers of the Department to undertake 
a thorough investigation as to the truth or falsity of these reports. 
I directed Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General Bristow to take the 
proper steps to institute the necessary inquiry, using for that purpose 
the post office inspectors' division and such other methods as would 
thoroughly ascertain the truth or falsity of the charges or insinua- 
tions made, and he was instructed to proceed promptly and with 
vigor during my absence. Since my return this morning, I have 
not seen General Bristow, so that I am not advised of the progress 
made. The investigation will continue and if any wrong-doing is 
disclosed, the parties guilty of such wrong-doing will be summarily 
dealt with. J f the system or method of doing business in the De- 
partment is faulty, the proper remedies will be applied without fear 
or favor. I inaugurated the investigation with the determination 
that it should be exhaustive. It is proper for me to add that I laid 
before the President the information which I had in my possession, 
and that he fully approved of the action proposed by me. 



Investigation Post Office Department 127 



Meanwhile the investigation was proceeding and in- 
terested officials were becoming restive. In the afternoon 
of April 22, 1903 — Mr. Tyner's official connection with 
the office not then ending — his wife and her sister, the 
mother of Harrison J. Barrett, assistant to Mr. Tyner, 
called at his office in the Department and in a surreptitious 
manner opened the safe and carried away a large bundle 
of papers and documents. Within a few moments Mr. 
Payne learned of the act and sent an officer forthwith to 
Mr. Tyner's residence to demand restitution. This, and 
inspection of the abstracted writings, were alike refused. 
Mr. Tyner was thereupon removed from office. His rep- 
resentatives. Mr. R. Ross Perry and Mr. Louis T. Miche- 
ner, on April 24, delivered a package of documents at the 
Department, which were carefully inspected by Mr. Payne 
and Mr. Bristow. with Mr. Tyner's attorneys. The writ- 
ings personal to Mr. Tyner were returned; the remainder, 
with the facts concerning Mr. Tyner, were laid before the 
Grand Jury. 

Upon the suggestion of Mr. Philander C. Knox, the 
Attorney-General, whom Mr. Payne consulted, Mr. 
Charles H. Robb, of Bellows Falls, Vermont, was ap- 
pointed Mr. Tyner's successor, and proved an active, 
vigilant and capable official. 

Public clamor concerning the exposures in the Post 
Office Department was intensified by charges persistently 
thrust forward against the integrity of the Washington 
city post office. These, popularly known as the Tulloch 
charges, emanated from Mr. Seymour W. Tulloch, who 
had been cashier in the Washington city post office and 
had been discharged when Mr. James P. Willett way 

to Mr. John A. Merritt, as postmaster, June 30, 1899. 



128 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

These charges had generally been thought the offspring 
of a splenetic desire for revenge, and had not been deemed 
worthy of full investigation by Mr. Payne's predecessor, 
Mr. Charles Emory Smith. They took the shape of 
definite assertions in an interview with Mr. Tulloch in the 
Washington Post of the morning of May i, 1903. That 
same day upon perusing the interview Mr. Payne wrote 
to Mr. Bristow, who had been connected with the Post 
Office Department since April 1, 1897, reciting some of 
the assertions of Tulloch as to the city office in Washing- 
ton, and inquiring as to their truth. Upon the same day 
Air. Payne wrote to Mr. Merritt concerning the Tulloch 

charges, stating : 

This is a direct reflection upon the integrity of your office, as 
well as upon the administration of the Post Office Department. 
As I intend to look into the case somewhat, I shall be glad to have 
you advise me what, if any, truth or lack of truth there is in the 
statement referred to. I enclose herewith a copy of the article re- 
ferred to. 

Upon May 2, Mr. Payne wrote to Air. John R. Proc- 
ter, president of the United States Civil Service Com- 
mission, in reference to the Tulloch statement : 

Among other things, it is stated that the '"civil service can al- 
ways be gotten round when necessary, as seen in the appointment of 
cleaners, charwomen, laborers, financial clerks, auditors, mechanics, 
and other excepted persons, irrespective of the duties performed, or 
whether any duties are performed." 

The reply of Mr. Bristow, under date of May 4, 1903, 
was of such a nature as to lead Mr. Payne, upon May 5, 
1903, to address a brief note to Mr. Tulloch. This note 
contained this paragraph : 

I shall be pleased to receive from you any statement which you 
are willing to make in writing, accompanied by any papers, docu- 
ments or evidence confirmatory of the charges which have appeared 
in the Washington Post. 



Investigation Post Office Department 129 

Mr. Tulloch's reply, of May 7, 1903, being incon- 
sequential, not to say impertinent, Mr. Payne on May 9 
requested Mr. Bristow in writing- to "call upon Mr. Tul- 
loch at your earliest convenience and ask him to give you 
any statement which he is willing to make in writing, ac- 
companied by any papers, documents or evidence con- 
firmatory of the charges which he has made, to the end 
that they may be enquired into, and if it is found that any 
irregularities exist, that they may be corrected." 

Mr. Bristow was successful and Mr. Tulloch sub- 
mitted to the Postmaster-General, under date of May 15, 
1903, fifty typewritten pages of matter, confessedly a 
statement of conditions, rather than details, and claiming 
that "a full and complete statement would require a com- 
mentary upon the pay rolls, vouchers and records of the 
Washington city post office for a period of upwards of 
two years or more previous to June 30, 1899." It was 
concerning this bulky document that Mr. Payne uttered 
an observation "hot air." The private secretary of Mr. 
Payne, Mr. Whitney, thus records the incident : 

Mr. Payne's remark applied to Tulloch's charges against the 
Washington post office only, which were very voluminous, but in 
certain antagonistic newspapers it was made to apply to the entire 
Department investigation charges. I was present when the remark 
was made. The newspaper men had been advised of the Tulloch 
charges and had been awaiting with some curiosity the result of the 
Postmaster-General's perusal of them. He held the mass of type- 
written pages in his hand while talking with the newspaper men and 
remarked that after having gone over the text he believed that about 
one-tenth was worthy of serious consideration, but that the other 
nine-tenths were simply "hot air." I have always believed he meant 
that Tulloch could have boiled down his text to about one-tenth and 
still have preferred all of his charges. It contained many unneces- 
sarily lengthy discourses, and by its length naturally attracted more 
attention to Mr. Tulloch when printed in the Washington Post. 






130 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

But it must not be supposed that Mr. Tulloch's state- 
ment was ignored. The opposite was the fact. Mr. 
Payne caused copies of it to be made and on May 19 and 
May 20 these were sent to Mr. Charles Emory Smith, 
former postmaster-general, to Mr. Robert J. Tracewell, 
comptroller of the United States treasury, to Mr. Merritt, 
to Mr. John W. Griggs, former attorney-general, to Mr. 
Frank A. Vanderlip, former assistant secretary of the 
treasury, to Mr. Perry S. Heath, former first assistant 
postmaster-general, and to Air. Henry A. Castle, auditor 
for the post office department, requesting from these per- 
sons such statements or explanations as would throw light 
upon the subject matter. What disposition was made of 
the replies soon appears. 

These chronological data have been purposely minute, 
that they might establish these two points : that Mr. Payne 
initiated and actively pushed the investigation in his de- 
partment, and that the remark uttered by him, referred to 
above, had no relation to the frauds he was himself un- 
earthing, but did relate either to the vagueness or to the 
prolixity of the Tulloch statement against the Washing- 
ton city post office. 

It remains now to note briefly the results of the in- 
vestigations. As the exposures of frauds were from time 
to time reported to the Postmaster-General they were re- 
ferred to the office of the Attorney-General for the re- 
quisite action. On June 24, 1903, Mr. Charles J. Bona- 
parte, of Baltimore, and Mr. Holmes Conrad, of Wash- 
ington, were appointed by the President special assistants 
to the Attorney-General to aid him in the work of obtain- 
ing evidence, securing indictments and prosecuting all per- 
sons criminally connected with the department scandals 



Investigation Post Office Department 131 



and frauds. To these same gentlemen, on July 17 and 
July 21, 1903, were referred the Tulloch charges against 
the Washington city post office, including the replies re- 
ceived from all the persons to whom copies of the Tulloch 
statement of May 15, 1903, had been sent or from those 
whose attention had been called to the Tulloch interview 
of May 1, 1903. 

As to the Tulloch interview and statement Messrs. 
Bonaparte and Conrad reported to the Attorney-General. 
With regard to the "hot air" criticism of the Tulloch 
statement, made by Mr. Payne, the criticism was sus- 
tained by them, although their comment is framed in more 
laborious, and in strictly legal, although not in any more 
expressive, phraseology. 

With regard to the facts Messrs. Bonaparte and Con- 
rad found that deplorable and gravely discreditable abuses 
existed in the Washington post office and in the office of 
the First Assistant Postmaster-General during the years 
1898, 1899 and 1900, that these abuses involved conduct 
on the part of various officials often illegal and perhaps 
criminal, and that the statute of limitations had run 
ag-ainst these abuses before the Tulloch interview on May 
1, 1903. Criticism was passed upon certain officials whose 
names are not pertinent to this biography and recom- 
mendation was made that an investigation be ordered, if 
not already ordered, of the post office at Washington, and 
at New York, and of the office of First Assistant Post- 
master-General within the just preceding three years. 

As to the immediate results of the investigation 
initiated by Air. Payne into the frauds in the Post Office 
Department : 

1. August W. Machen, of Ohio, General Superin- 



132 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



tendent of the Free Delivery System, was removed for 
malfeasance and tried in two cases. In the first he was 
found guilty and sentenced to two years in the peni- 
tentiary and fined ten thousand dollars. In the second 
case he pleaded guilty and received two years additional. 
He is now in the penitentiary at Moundsville, West 
Virginia. 

2. George W. Beavers, who resigned March 31, 
1903, pleaded guilty to frauds upon the government and 
was sentenced to two years in the penitentiary at Mounds- 
ville. 

3. James N. Tyner was tried May 2, 1904, for "con- 
spiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to com- 
mit the offense of misconduct in office and conspiracy to 
commit the offense of bribery." He was acquitted. It 
was the opinion of the Postmaster-General that Mr. Ty- 
ner would have been convicted had not evidence been 
abstracted when the papers were removed as hereinbefore 
related. He died in 1904, aged seventy-eight years. 

4. Harrison J. Barrett, assistant to Mr. Tyner, 
nephew of Mrs. Tyner, was tried at the same time with 
Mr. Tyner and acquitted. The particulars of the charges 
against Mr. Barrett are set out in 23 Appeal Cases, Dis- 
trict of Columbia, page 324. 

5. Thomas W. McGregor, clerk in charge of con- 
tract supplies and accounts, free delivery service, was con- 
victed and sentenced to two years in the Maryland peni- 
tentiary and to pay a fine of one thousand dollars. 

6. Ellsworth Upton, order clerk, free delivery serv- 
ice, was sentenced to one year in the Baltimore jail and to 
pay a fine of one thousand dollars. 

7. James W. Erwin, assistant superintendent free de- 



Investigation Post Office Department 133 



livery service, San Francisco, was indicted, but was dis- 
charged by order of the California court, which refused 
to order his transfer to the District of Columbia, where 
an indictment against him is still pending. 

In addition to these persons, all whose terms of serv- 
ice antedated Mr. Payne's official career in Washington, 
numerous other offenders of calibre great and small re- 
ceived short shrift in the shape of instant discharge. The 
Department investigation was practically closed on Octo- 
ber 24, 1903, when the report of Mr. Bristow was sub- 
mitted to the Postmaster-General. The moral effect of 
this investigation was tremendous and far reaching, but 
its lasting and salutary benefits Mr. Payne was not, alas ! 
to live to enjoy. 

After thoroughly reading and digesting this report 
Mr. Payne, on November 3, 1903, wrote to Mr. Bristow 
a commendatory letter, to which he received the follow- 
ing reply : 

Office of Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General, 

Washington, D. C, November 4, 1903. 
My Dear General Payne: 

In response to your letter of November 3, commending the work 
of myself and the inspectors in connection with the recent investiga- 
tion, I appreciate very much your kind expressions of approval. I 
desire to thank you personally for the sincere and earnest support 
which I received from you during the entire progress of the in- 
vestigation. Without such support from the head of the Department 
the investigation could not have succeeded as it did. 
Very truly yours, 

J. L. Bristow, 

Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General. 
The Postmaster-General. 

It becomes this narrative now to make some references 
from other pens, bearing directly or indirectly upon the 
conduct of the investigation. With regard to its initia- 



134 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



tion there follows the important part of a letter written 
May 5, 1903, to the Washington Post by Congressman 
Loud: 

On yesterday I was interviewed by the representatives of several 
of the newspapers of the country, in which interview I took occasion 
to make a statement regarding the investigation now going on in the 
Post Office Department, which I thought was but an act of justice to 
the Department. The statement was considered particularly im- 
portant by me by reason of the fact that there were but two men, 
besides myself, in the country who could have known the absolute 
facts regarding the situation. The statements made by me are in 
substance as follows: 

Many newspapers have repeatedly stated that the present in- 
vestigation was not instituted until after certain pressure had been 
brought to bear upon the Department. Early in the winter — it must 
have been in December— the present Postmaster-General (Mr. 
Payne) and myself had many consultations regarding the postal 
service, and as a result of these interviews it was determined, as 
soon as possible after the adjournment of Congress, that an in- 
vestigation should be made of the service. Mr. Payne was in thor- 
ough accord with me regarding the advisability of this investiga- 
tion. I recommended that such investigation should not commence 
until after Congress adjourned. There are many reasons, which it 
is unnecessary here to enumerate, why such a time should have been 
selected. The proof that this investigation was determined upon by 
the Department is to be found in the miscellaneous items reported 
in the post office appropriation bill in January. It heretofore had 
been one thousand dollars. That item was increased to six thousand 
dollars for the express purpose of using, if necessary, means outside 
of the Post Office Department itself in carrying on the investigation. 
The reasons for the increase in this appropriation were known only 
to the Postmaster-General, Mr. Bromwell, of Ohio, and myself. 

The Washington Post, which so often had commented 
upon the investigation during its progress, in an impartial 
yet sympathetic sketch of Mr. Payne, printed, upon the 
morning after his death, the following: 

Mr. Payne had been unwilling to believe that his department 
could harbor such irregularities as had been charged, but becoming 
convinced of the fact he proceeded to oust the wrong-doers, and 
worked diligently to place the affairs of the Department on an honest 



Investigation Post Office Department 135 

and business-like basis. All this imposed onerous duties upon Mr. 
Payne — duties that undoubtedly overtaxed his strength. He would 
have resigned over a year ago, but for the criticism that centered 
upon him and the probability that his critics would have accused 
him of running under fire. 

It is doubtful if the general public has ever had a correct estimate 
of Mr. Payne in relation to the postal investigation. When he en- 
tered the Cabinet, only a few months after Mr. Roosevelt became 
President, the country regarded him solely as a shrewd politician, 
possibly of a record that would not bear the closest scrutiny. There 
was no prejudice against his personal character. He had been be- 
fore the country simply in the role of party manager and intimately 
associated with the wheelhorses of the Republican National Com- 
mittee. Some of President Roosevelt's warmest admirers confessed 
surprise that he should bring a trained politician of Mr. Payne's stripe 
into his official family. But Mr. Payne rapidly conquered whatever 
personal prejudice existed against him among those with whom he 
came in contact. 

As soon as the postal scandal acquired publicity the press in the 
States and public opinion were quick to assume that Mr. Payne was 
resisting investigation and that he would strive with all his might 
to keep the lid on. Certain of his utterances unfortunately gave 
color to such a view. His characterization of grave charges pre- 
ferred by a former official as "hot air" tenaciously clung to him. 
The words were spoken during a meeting of newspaper men in his 
office, and iterated and reiterated everywhere in the country. As a 
matter of fact the Postmaster-General assumed a judicial attitude 
when the charges of scandal were first pressed against his subor- 
dinates. He refused, properly, as most people believed, to credit 
those charges till specific proof had been adduced. As somewhat 
similar accusations had been made under the administration of his 
predecessor, and ignored, there was a general impatience outside of 
the Department at anything save vigorous prosecution. 

If Mr. Payne was thoroughly judicial in his attitude at the be- 
ginning of the investigation, which has made his term as Postmaster- 
General the most notable of any for many years, he swerved quite 
as strongly towards vigorous prosecution as the disclosures pro- 
ceeded. The proof of Machen's operation in the free delivery bureau 
shocked him. Thereafter he did not hesitate to discharge the oldest 
and hitherto the most trusted employes on evidence of grafting. 
However, the criticism of his administration from influential quar- 
ters continued. Much of this criticism was undoubtedly undeserved. 
It was frequently rumored that he would be compelled to retire 
from the Cabinet. These rumors are known to have had no founda- 



136 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

tion, for Mr. Payne enjoyed the confidence and good-will of the 
President. 

Mr. Payne was sensitive to these attacks, notwithstanding the 
belief that he was a hardened politician who could give and take 
hard blows. This sensitiveness was enhanced because it had been 
his ambition for many years to become a Cabinet officer. Being a 
man of considerable business training he hoped to round out his 
active career with a highly creditable record in extending and im- 
proving the efficiency of that great business department. 

Mr. Payne did enjoy "the confidence and good will of 
the President." Before the investigations ended the fol- 
lowing communication emanated from the White House: 

White House, 

Washington, Feb. 27, 1904. 

My Dear Mr. Postmaster-General: 

While all the work of the Post Office Department and the De- 
partment of Justice in connection with the postal frauds is not yet 
over, there is already to the credit of the Departments, and there- 
fore primarily to your credit, such an amount of substantive achieve- 
ment, that I take this opportunity to congratulate you personally 
upon it. It is impossible to expect that corruption will not occa- 
sionally occur in any government; the vital point is the energy, the 
fearlessness, and the efficiency with which such corruption is cut 
out and the corruptionists punished. The success of the prosecu- 
tions in this case as compared with previous experiences in prose- 
cuting government officials who have been guilty of malfeasance or 
misfeasance is as noteworthy as it is gratifying, and must be a source 
of encouragement to all men who believe in decency and honesty in 
public life. What has been accomplished by you, by those who have 
worked under you in your Department, and by the Department of 
Justice, redounds to the credit of our whole people and is a signal 
triumph for the cause of popular government. If corruption goes 
unpunished in popular government, then government by the people 
will ultimately fail ; and they are the best friends of the people who 
make it evident that whoever in public office, or in connection with 
public office, sins against the fundamental laws of civic and social 
well-doing, will be punished with unsparing vigor. 

Sincerely yours, 

Theodore Roosevelt. 
Hon. H. C. Payne, 

Postmaster-General. 



Investigation Post Office Department 137 



Senator Spooner in his speech of April 9, 1904, to 
which reference was made at the close of the last chapter, 
comments thus upon the investigation : 

Neither carping nor innuendo, from whatever source or wherever 
uttered, can blind the people to the searching and vigorous character 
of that investigation, and the unwavering determination of the 
President, the Postmaster-General, and the other officials charged 
with the duty, that it should be exhaustive, and should take no note 
of party affiliations, political or personal friendship. The people 
know that as it went on it involved not only officials in the Depart- 
ments, but private citizens of different degrees of prominence, and 
that no consideration of friendship or influence was allowed to mod- 
ify its thoroughness and energy, exposure, and prosecution. 

Mr. William H. Moody, who was successively Secre- 
tary of the Navy and Attorney-General while Mr. Payne 
was in the Cabinet, while mentioning only generally the 
troubles in the latter's department, writes thus of his 
associate : 

When I entered the Cabinet of President Roosevelt on May I, 
1902, Mr. Payne was Postmaster-General, and continued in that 
office until the day of his death. My acquaintance with him began 
with our common service and ripened into sincere friendship. It 
was impossible for any one who came in contact with him to resist 
the attraction of his gentle and lovable nature. Though he was an 
earnest partisan, he had nothing but kind words and kind feelings 
for those who differed from him in their political beliefs. He was 
a loyal friend and trusted implicitly the loyalty of those who pro- 
fessed to be his friends. Nothing was more pathetic than his sor- 
row when he found that in some cases that trust had been misplaced. 
It was hard for him to believe that the confidence which he so 
freely bestowed had been abused. Yet when that knowledge was 
forced upon him, he was unrelenting in his pursuit of the wrong- 
doers. He was conscientious to the last degree in the performance 
of his official duties and spared no effort to perform them faithfully 
— often at the expense of his health. At one time he made a journey 
with me through the West Indies and wherever we found any work 
which was being conducted under the direction of his Department, 
he examined it assiduously, and did all within his power to see that 
the work was properly performed. In his death the public service 
suffered a severe loss, and his friends an irretrievable calamity. I 
shall always treasure the memory of my friendship with him, and 
never cease to grieve for his untimely death. 



138 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



Mr. Charles H. Robb, then Assistant Attorney-Gen- 
eral of the United States, and now Associate Justice of the 
Court of Appeals, District of Columbia, gives his im- 
pressions of his former chief in the following terms. 

Soon after the commencement of the postal investigation early 
in 1903, the Assistant Attorney-General for the Post Office Depart- 
ment was summarily removed by General Payne, and I was ap- 
pointed to the office upon the understanding that the appointment 
should be temporary. It was then that I first met Mr. Payne. 

His great sincerity, ready sympathy, uniform kindness, integ- 
rity and fidelity to duty, soon completely won my heart and impelled 
me to abandon my original purpose of temporarily filling the office, 
and to decide to remain therein so long as I could be of any service 
to him. 

Our relations were necessarily of an intimate and confidential 
nature, and my opportunities for judging the man were exceptional. 
He was a warm and steadfast friend whom it deeply hurt to discover 
that those upon whom he had relied had been unfaithful. This trait 
of character, added to his great love of justice and fair play, created 
the impression in the minds of some that he was not a sincere in- 
vestigator of his Department. In this they did Mr. Payne great in- 
justice. To my certain knowledge he shielded no one, and hesitated 
not an instant to remove from the service and do all in his power to 
prosecute, every person whose guilt was demonstrated by evi- 
dence. He would act in such cases summarily and fearlessly, im- 
pelled by a high sense of duty. It was always a great shock to him, 
however, possessed as he was of such a highly sensitive and sym- 
pathetic temperament, to be compelled in the performance of his 
stern duty, to measure out justice to those with whom he had been 
associated, and as to whose integrity he had theretofore entertained 
no doubt. The cares of his office during such a trying period bore 
heavily upon him, and he ultimately became a martyr to duty. 

He was a man of marked business ability, accustomed to, and 
capable of, directing large enterprises. As an official he quickly 
grasped the details of every branch of his Department, and was its 
responsible head. He was in no way accountable for the conditions 
out of which grew the practices which resulted in the investigation, 
but he did all in his power to better those conditions and to punish 
the persons responsible therefor. 

It has never been my lot to know a more kindly or more lovable 
character. His heart was full of love for his fellow-man and malice 
had no place therein. 



Investigation Post Office Department 139 

Senator Nathan B. Scott, of West Virginia, makes 
these statements as to the relation of Mr. Payne with the 

Post Office Department : 

His impress on the political affairs of Wisconsin was great and 
always for better and cleaner politics. He was a man of great ability 
to plan and to map out on certain lines work that should be done in 
order to secure success, and through all the different campaigns up 
to the last one he was the one man, after the chairman, who was 
relied upon most for advice and counsel. 

His induction into the Post Office Department at the time he 
was made Postmaster-General was unfortunate. He was held re- 
sponsible in the minds of the masses for acts of commission and 
omission that he had no control over and which were matters of 
record before he took office. Anyone knowing him as I did would 
know he would not be a party to or countenance anything that was 
not absolutely straightforward and honorable. That he had those 
associated with him in the Post Office Department who should have 
been his loyal support and counselors who were not sincere and who 
did much to bring about conditions that they hoped would reflect 
upon him, I know he felt, and his friends knew and resented. I 
have no hesitancy in saying that I believe the treachery of those who 
should have upheld him in every way hastened his death, because to 
a sensitive nature like his, treachery of that kind sank deep. Well 
do I remember on one occasion when conversing with him in regard 
to those who were giving out information and trying in every way 
they could to besmirch his good name, that he referred to the fact to 
me with tears coursing down his cheeks and said, "Never mind, 
Scottie, the truth will prevail and my good name will be vindicated 
long after those who are trying to traduce me now have been for- 
gotten." 

Such vindication may this biography assist to accom- 
plish ! 

Mr. Bristow,* by reason of reporting frequently to his 
chief the progress of his work, was likewise brought into 
intimate relations with him and saw him on official busi- 



*A sketch of his life is in Review of Reviews, January, 1904, 
Volume XXIX, page 45. He is now the editor of the Salina, Kansas, 
Journal. 



140 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



ness daily. He has recorded his estimate of Mr. Payne in 
a communication from which these extracts are made: 

In the discharge of his official duties Mr. Payne was cautious in 
arriving at conclusions upon the questions submitted to him, nor 
was he ever hasty in forming his opinions as to the character and 
reliability of men. He always waited and apparently studied a new 
acquaintance well before he was willing to express an opinion about 
him. 

Mr. Payne had a very interesting personality. His mind was 
clear and analytical. He could see through the sophistry of an argu- 
ment with remarkable clearness, and arrived at just and proper 
conclusions in regard to most intricate matters with unusual pre- 
cision. I have never been associated with a man in any capacity in 
life who had a keener and more analytical mind that Mr. Payne, 
but it was not always easy for him to act in accordance with his 
judgment. He had a very sensitive nature and a kindly and affec- 
tionate disposition. 

While slow to establish a friendship, he was even slower to 
break it when once established. When he gave a man his confidence 
he gave it unreservedly, and when he withdrew that confidence he 
did it completely. I have thought that at times he was too severe 
in his judgment of men in whom he had lost confidence. He had a 
most admirable trait of character in being thoroughly loyal to a sub- 
ordinate who was pursuing the line of duty. During the most try- 
ing period of the postal investigation when he was so mercilessly 
criticised for endeavoring to "smother the truth" he was in fact giv- 
ing me unqualified support. During the early period of the investi- 
gation I was very careful not to submit anything to him for his con- 
sideration until I had thoroughly examined every phase of it and 
had secured the most reliable evidence as to the truth or falsity of 
the matter involved. I pursued this policy for two reasons. First, 
because his health was poor and I did not want to burden him with 
unnecessary details ; and second, because evidence as to corruption 
in the Department was so disagreeable to him that I did not want 
to disturb his mind with what might be simply suspicious. I, there- 
fore, only submitted to him facts when they were properly authenti- 
cated. I will never forget the day that I unfolded to him the case 
against Machen in regard to the Groff fasteners. He was astonished 
at the boldness and ingenuity of the crime, and stated, with some 
excitement, that if those facts were properly sustained Machen should 
be arrested before night. I told him that there was no doubt as to 
the truth of the charge, that it was thoroughly sustained by the evi- 
dence, and if it met with his approval I would request the district 
attorney to have warrants prepared for Machen's arrest immediately. 



Investigation Post Office Department 141 



He directed that this be done, and within an hour and a half from 
that time Machen was in the custody of the United States Marshal. 

I had heard a great deal of Mr. Payne as a politician before I 
made his personal acquaintance. He was said to be a very sharp, 
shrewd party manager. I had no opportunity to study this phase of 
his character for he never injected party politics into his adminis- 
tration of the Post Office Department. There was nothing in his 
official conduct that savored of machine party politics. He was 
perfectly willing, however, to be styled a politician. The term to 
him was not offensive. He frequently said to me, "They call me a 
machine politician, but I draw the line on a good many things that 
these reformers do." 

Mr. Payne's kindliness of heart and his absolute loyalty to the 
subordinates whom he trusted made him a delightful character to be 
associated with. He was a man of great industry, and frequently 
worked far beyond his physical strength in his efforts to keep up 
with the work of the Department. 

Mr. Payne, by temperament, would have been wholly unfit to 
have had immediate personal charge of the postal investigation, but 
the officers who did the detail work of that investigation owe him a 
debt of gratitude which they cannot express for the unfaltering 
support which he gave them from the beginning to the end, and for 
this support he deserves the praise of the country which was un- 
fortunately withheld from him during his lifetime. My personal 
attachment to him as the years went by became very strong, and I 
have never been associated with any man whose death gave me 
greater pain and whose memory I cherish with greater affection. 



142 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



CHAPTER XVI 



"£!)e C&arges Concerning a^emtiers" 

Upon a man so sensitive in disposition as was Mr. 
Payne, and far from robust in health, the investigation 
as it developed, with its imposition of disagreeable duties, 
could not fail to produce extreme bodily and mental de- 
pression. These distressing feelings were sensibly ag- 
gravated by a train of events which followed the filing of 
the Bristow report on October 24, 1903. Remarks that 
this report might or did contain matters of serious import 
affecting members of Congress spread about. On Decem- 
ber 8, 1903, the House authorized its Committee on the 
Post Office and Post Roads to request from the Post- 
master-General "all the papers connected with the recent 
investigation of his department." On December 15, 1903, 
the Postmaster-General, by direction of the President, 
transmitted to the said Committee the said papers, includ- 
ing therewith the papers relating to the investigation of 
the so-called Tulloch charges, but omitting certain con- 
fidential exhibits which, pending prosecution of indicted 
officials, it was inexpedient to make public. On February 
5, 1904, the Senate, by resolution, requested the same 
papers, and there was like transmittal to that body on 
the ensuing day. 

Certain statements in the Bristow report, although 
impersonal so far as members of Congress were con- 



"The Charges Concerning Members" 143 



cerned, were regarded by some representatives as reflec- 
tions upon the integrity of the membership of the House 
and upon individual members whose names had not 
been mentioned. These statements grouped themselves 
mainly about two alleged charges : firstly, that in defiance 
of statutory inhibition, George W. Beavers, had, in his 
official capacity, made contracts of lease, directly or in- 
directly, with members of Congress, who were owners of 
eligible buildings, for the rental (in some cases for the 
re-rental at higher rates) of such buildings, for postal 
purposes; secondly, that, upon the request of congress- 
men, increased allowances for clerk hire (technically 
known as allowances for separating purposes) in certain 
third and fourth class post offices within the constituencies 
of such congressmen, had been granted by said Beavers, 
which said allowances, later, upon investigation, had been 
either discontinued or reduced. 

Thereupon Mr. James Hay, a member of the House 
from Virginia, introduced a resolution directing the ap- 
pointment of a special committee of representatives to in- 
vestigate the so-called charges contained in the Bristow 
report. This resolution, with its preambles, was referred 
for consideration to the Committee on the Post Office and 
Post-roads. 

Meanwhile, on January n, 1904, while this last named 
committee was examining certain officials of the Post 
Office Department, preliminary to the preparation and 
presentation of the customary annual budget of appr ipria- 
tions, it developed from statements by Mr. Charles M. 
Waters, General Superintendent, Division of Salary and 
Allowance, that there existed in the Department a list of 
some nine hundred post offices where allowances had been 



144 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

made, as above stated, for separating purposes, which al- 
lowances had later been reduced or discontinued. 

Thereupon Mr. Jesse Overstreet, of Indiana, chair- 
man of the said committee, informed the Postmaster- 
General by telephone of the existence of said list, stated 
that its use would be of service to the committee, and 
asked if any reason existed why the committee should 
not be furnished with it. Mr. Payne, having in mind the 
pendency before the committee of an amendment to the 
statutes legalizing such allowances in the discretion of the 
Postmaster-General, and believing that the list might 
therefore be useful to the committee, informed the chair- 
man that he saw no reason why the list should not be 
copied for the committee's use, but he suggested a formal 
request. Accordingly, a letter (which hereinafter will be 
designated as Letter A) was sent to the Postmaster-Gen- 
eral, of which the following is a copy : 

Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, 
House of Representatives U. S. 

Washington, D. C, January 22, 1904. 
Hon. Henry C. Payne, 

Postmaster-General, 

Washington, D. C. 
Sir: 

I have the honor to request that there be furnished direct to this 
Committee, by the Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General, all in- 
formation which can be communicated by such official with reference 
to allowances for clerk hire in offices where those allowances have 
been discontinued, together with all information relating to leases 
which have been made to Members of Congress and whether dis- 
continued and renewed at a higher rate. 

I would thank you to have this information in my hands by 10 
o'clock Monday morning, January 25th. 

Very respectfully, 

Jesse Overstreet, 

Chairman. 



"The Charges Concerning Members" 145 

This letter is stamped, "P. O. Department, Received 
Jan. 23, 1904, Office of the Postmaster-General." 

Upon this same January 23, which was Saturday, the 
same committee, apparently desiring to amplify its re- 
quest and to obtain the fullest information, wrote the fol- 
lowing (Letter B) : 

Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, 
House of Representatives U. S. 

Washington, D. C, January 23, 1904. 
Hon. Henry C. Payne, 

Postmaster-General, 

Washington, D. C. 
Sir: 

During the hearing before this committee recently, the statement 
was made by Mr. Waters that from about ooo offices allowances for 
separating purposes had been taken away because the offices were 
not entitled to them. From a conversation had with Mr. Waters 
over the telephone it was understood that a statement had been made 
to the Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General in regard to these dis- 
allowances, and that a copy of this statement could probably be 
furnished without much difficulty. 

I would be pleased to have you furnish me, for use of the com- 
mittee, a copy of the statement referred to, at the earliest oppor- 
tunity. The committee desires to know what offices have been 
affected by these disallowances, what the allowance was before any 
reduction or discontinuance was made, and what it is now; and also 
the compensation allowed postmasters at each of the offices in ques- 
tion. It may be that all of this information is not easily obtainable 
without considerable delay, and if so, please advise me immediately. 
But in any event, the committee desires to have such information 
as is now accessible as soon as possible. 

Very respectfully, 

Jesse Overstreet, 

Chairman. 

Upon the receipt of this latter letter, upon Monday, 
January 25, the Postmaster-General sent for the list, 
which would furnish the information desired. Upon ex- 
amining it — for this was the first time Mr. Payne had 
seen the list — he observed therein, opposite the names of 



14G Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



post offices in a column headed "Recommended by, and 
Remarks," the names of senators, representatives and 
other prominent men. After conference with the First 
Assistant Postmaster-General, Mr. Payne directed the 
copying of the list, omitting such names, their trans- 
mission not being, in his opinion, necessary for the com- 
mittee's purposes. Pending the prompt preparation of the 
copy, Mr. Payne dispatched the following message 

(Letter C) : 

Post Office Department, 

Washington, D. C, January 25, 1904. 
Hon. Jesse Overstreet, 

Chairman Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, 

House of Representatives. 
Expect to be able to send you this afternoon statement of allow- 
ances for separating purposes which have been taken away from 

about 900 offices. 

H. C. Payne, 

Postmaster-General. 

Later on the same Monday, the list, omitting the said 
names, was transmitted to the committee, the following 
letter (Letter D) accompanying it: 

Office of the Postmaster-General, 

Washington, D. C, January 25, 1904. 
Hon. Jesse Overstreet, 

Chairman Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, 

Sir: 

Replying to your communication of the 23d instant, I beg to 
enclose herewith statement showing the reduction in allowances for 
clerk hire in post offices of the third and fourth classes since April I, 
1903. This shows the former allowances amounted to $162,966. The 
present allowances amount to $63,600. 

Respectfully yours, 

H. C. Payne, 

Postmaster-General. 

P. S. — If it is desired we will ascertain and advise you the salary 
or compensation of the postmasters at the offices in question. 

H. C. P. 



"The Charges Concerning Members" 147 

The receipt of this letter, with the enclosed list, called 
therein a "Statement", was never formally acknowledged. 

Upon the same day Mr. Bristow sent to the committee 
two letters (Letters E, F) particularizing three instances 
where post offices were or had been occupying premises 
leased from members of the House, specifying the Postal 
Rules and Regulations relating to allowances for clerk 
hire, and adding that he could furnish "an incomplete list 
of the cases relating to both clerk hire and leases in a few 
days, but it will take some time to compile a complete 
list." 

Thereupon the chairman of the Committee on the 
Post Office and Post-roads wrote to the Postmaster-Gen- 
eral as follows (Letter G) : 

Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, 
House of Representatives U. S. 

Washington, D. C, January 25. 1904. 
Hon. Henry C. Payne, 

Postmaster-General, 

Washington, D. C. 
Sir: 

I am in receipt of a letter of this date from Hon. J. L. Bristow, 
Fourth Assistant Postmaster-General, replying to my request made 
to you in my letter of January 22d, in which he informs me that he 
has been unable to fully comply with my request, but can, if granted 
more time, send to the committee a complete list of cases relating to 
both clerk hire and leases referred to. 

In view of the references of the Fourth Assistant Postmaster- 
General in his report to you under date of October 24th, 1903, to 
the action of Members of Congress in recommending increase of 
clerk hire, and cancellation of leases and their renewal at a higher 
rate, I request that this Committee be furnished, at the earliest prac- 
ticable date, a complete list of all cases referred to in said report 
relating to allowances for clerk hire in offices where those allowances 
have subsequently been discontinued, and also of all cases where 
leases of post office premises have been cancelled and renewed at a 
higher rate, together with a statement in detail giving a full explana- 
tion of the facts connected with each case. 

Very respectfully, 

Jesse Overstreet, 

Chairman. 



148 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

In compliance with the request thus precisely made 
and in compliance with an intimation, either by telephone 
or at a personal interview, by the chairman of the com- 
mittee to Air. Payne, that the list, with names omitted, 
sent as an enclosure with Letter D, was not satisfactory, 
Mr. Payne directed that the said list be recopied and 
amended so as to include the names found in the column 
"Recommended by, and Remarks." 

But as Mr. Payne did not esteem it just or right thus 
to amend the list without accompanying it with explana- 
tory matter showing the exact relation of each congress- 
man with the post office with which his name was asso- 
ciated in the matter of either clerk hire, allowances or 
leases, he had an interview with the chairman of the com- 
mittee at which it was agreed that the circumstances sur- 
rounding each case as shown by the Department files 
should be briefly set forth in connection with the list. This 
additional and amendatory matter was a work of great 
magnitude, and by the close of Saturday, January 30, was 
not half completed. On Sunday, January 31, another in- 
terview occurred between the chairman of the committee 
and Mr. Payne, at the latter's residence, at which Mr. 
Payne suggested reconsideration of the determination to 
include in the list the names of the congressmen. At the 
same time Mr. Payne exhibited to Mr. Overstreet for his 
approval the work already completed with these names 
included. Mr. Overstreet expressed himself as entirely 
satisfied with the work in form and substance as it was 
then exhibited to him. 

Upon the next day, February 1, Mr. Payne reporting 
progress to the chairman, wrote him as follows (Letter 
H): 



"The Charges Concerning Members" 149 

Office of the Postmaster-General, 

Washington, D. C., February I, 1904. 
Hon. Jesse Ovcrstreet, 

Chairman Committee on the Post Office and Post Roads, 
House of Representatives. 
Sir: 

Referring to your communication of the 23d and 25th ultimo, 
respectively, requesting information concerning allowances for clerk 
hire at post offices of the third and fourth classes, I beg to advise 
you that I have the proper officers of the Department preparing the 
data desired. There is no reason to doubt but that I will be able to 
place the information in your hands before the close of the present 
week. 

Very respectfully, 

H. C. Payne, 

Postmaster-General. 

By February 4th the list, with the names of congress- 
men included and with the explanatory matter as above 
described, was completed. It will herein, for brevity, be 
designated the Amended List. It was transmitted on 
February 5th to the committee with a letter (Letter I), 
not necessary to be copied, but stating that the matter 
furnished is as requested by Mr. Overstreet's "communi- 
cations of January 23 and 25" (Letters B and G). Upon 
February 16 and March 2, certain additional information 
regarding leases and allowances for rent, fuel and light 
was also transmitted. 

This Amended List, stated by the clerk of the Commit- 
tee on the Post Office and Post-roads, to be a "confidential 
report," and characterized by the New York Tribune of 
February 29, 1904, as "a white elephant," was thereupon 
prepared for the Public Printer under the direction of the 
committee. Its caption, as thus prepared, was: 

Resolution Relative to Investigation of 
Charges Made in the Report of the Fourth As- 
sistant Postmaster-General on the Investigation 



150 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

of the Post Office Department Concerning Mem- 
bers of Congress. 

This caption was followed by a recital of the Hay- 
resolution with its preambles, by a short argument tend- 
ing to show that the material contained in the Amended 
List rendered unnecessary the investigation contemplated 
by the Hay resolution, and by a recommendation that the 
Hay resolution therefore lie on the table. After this pre- 
face, came introductory matter, consisting of the letters 
hereinbefore described as Letters A, G, E, F, H and I. 
Then followed the Amended List. 

As to this introductory matter, comprising these six 
letters, some observations must be made : 

i. Letter A, from the committee to the Postmaster- 
General, which is plainly dated in the original January 22, 
1904, appears incorrectly under the date January 23, 
1904. This is the innocent first letter which requested 
but little information. 

2. Letter B, from the committee to the Postmaster- 
General, dated January 23, 1904, is entirely omitted and 
is not even alluded to. This was an extremely unfortu- 
nate omission so far as affecting Mr. Payne, for Letter B 
requested the fullest and widest information, and its ex- 
clusion and the printing of the innocent Letter A under 
the date of January 23, unwarrantably placed Mr. Payne 
in the attitude of volunteering unpalatable information, 
of impertinently tendering what he had never been re- 
quested to send. 

3. Letter D, from Mr. Payne to the committee, trans- 
mitting the original List, with names of congressmen 
eliminated, was also omitted. 



"The Charges Concerning Members" 151 

4. In the third line of Letter G, from the committee 
to Mr. Payne, the date January 23 is given instead of 
January 22, as the date of Letter A — thus carrying on 
the change noted at observation 1 and accentuating the 
omission of Letter B. 

5. Letters H and I, from Mr. Payne to the commit- 
tee, which disclose that the material forwarded was pre- 
pared and forwarded in accordance with the committee's 
request in its letters of "January 23 and 25," are made, 
by the incorrect dating of Letter A and the omission of 
Letter B, to refer to Letters A and G, instead of B and G, 
■ — still perpetuating the mild Letter A, still placing Mr. 
Payne in a false attitude. 

Let us return from these observations to the document 
which occasioned them. With all its alterations and 
omissions it was delivered to the Public Printer 
at about one o'clock in the afternoon of Saturday, March 
5, — a bulky document which, when printed, occupied two 
hundred and eighteen octavo pages. Nevertheless, it was 
ready for presentation to the House on Monday, March 
7, and a copy of the pamphlet lay upon each member's 
desk. But to the chagrin and mortification of all, the 
head-line, Charges Concerning Members of Congress, ran 
along all the two hundred and eighteen pages ! 

To one not interested the situation must have been 
comical enough, but in the House there was great indigna- 
tion, much of which vented itself upon Mr. Payne. To 
be sure, he was not responsible for the odious head-line — 
that had originated in the Government Printing Office, 
and had justification for its existence in the committee's 
own caption. But the document appearing under these ob- 
noxious head-lines emanated from Mr. Payne's depart- 



152 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

ment, and the omission of letters and alterations of dates 
placed upon him and it the burden of having volunteered 
information which, as a matter of fact, had actually been 
dragged out of Air. Payne. It matters not whether or 
no the committee blundered in demanding the Amended 
List; it matters not whether its errors and omissions are 
ascribable to the culpable carelessness of the committee's 
clerk, or to his malice against Mr. Bristow, growing out 
of the unfavorable light in which a portion of the latter's 
report exhibited him ; it matters not whether the explana- 
tory matter appended to the Amended List disclosed offi- 
cial turpitude upon the part of congressmen or absolute im- 
maculateness — the effect of all the distressing business 
was the pouring out of vials of undeserved vituperation 
upon an innocent man's head. 

The matter came to a climax in the House on March 
n. 1904. A resolution was pending for the appointment 
of a special committee of seven members, to be known as 
Select Committee on Relations of Members with the Post 
Office Department, and to it was to be referred the Hay 
resolution, the Amended List and the opprobrious head- 
lines. The debate waxed warm and much injured inno- 
cence was aired. With some distinguished exceptions 
Democrats and Republicans, congressmen from the South 
and congressmen from the North, even from Wisconsin, 
had alike chorused in vehement denunciation of Mr. 
Payne and Mr. Bristow. 

All this time the chief object of this bitter clamor was 
seriously ill. and was confined to his bed for almost a 
month, beginning March 8. On the above mentioned 
March II, while the House was in the midst of the excit- 



'The Charges Concerning Members" 153 

ing debate just referred to, Mr. Payne's Secretary, Mr. 
Whitney, had discovered the errors in the report of the 
Committee on the Post Office and Post-roads, particularly 
the omission of the comprehensive Letter B. Hastening 
to Mr. Payne's bedside he explained the situation and 
was directed to lay the matter before Representative 
Henry A. Cooper and Representative Joseph W. 
Babcock, both of Wisconsin. Finding the former in the 
room of his committee (Insular Affairs) Mr. Whitney 
exhibited to him a copy of the omitted Letter B. Realiz- 
ing its bearing Mr. Cooper hurried to the floor of the 
House that he might seek recognition and read the letter. 
Mr. Whitney then found Mr. Babcock, made explanation 
of the affair and handed him another copy of the letter. 
Mr. Babcock quickly comprehending the situation, broke 
away from Mr. Whitney, exclaiming that he must see 
Mr. Overstreet and remind him of the letter. Before, 
however, Mr. Cooper could catch the Speaker's eye, Mr. 
Overstreet arose in his place and thus addressed the 
House : 

Before yielding to the next gentleman I wish to state that in the 
publication of the report brought in by the Committee on the Post 
Office and Post Roads, there was inadvertently omitted a letter which 
I had addressed to the Postmaster-General, under date of January 
23, which I ask the Clerk to read. It relates to the same subject- 
matter and should accompany the report. 

The Clerk then read Letter B. 

But even this reading did not entirely check the tirade 
of abuse, although Mr. Overstreet by presenting the letter 
had made some, if tardy and incomplete, reparation. 
Nevertheless, one cannot but express the wish that earlier 
in this unhappy debate (which was in part under his con- 
trol) and while congressmen all about were scoring and 



154 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

grilling the Postmaster-General and his department, Mr. 
Overstreet had remembered and produced this important 
letter. 

The resolution appointing the select committee was 
adopted at the close of the eventful session of March n, 
and Mr. Samuel W. McCall, of Massachusetts, was its 
chairman. In gathering material for this report the com- 
mittee visited the bedside of Mr. Payne on April 2, 1904. 
By the report of this committee, as printed, the origin of 
the List, which caused all the trouble, was traced and the 
fact established that Mr. Payne had no knowledge of its 
existence until its publicity was requested. It also ap- 
peared that Mr. Payne had been unwilling to publish this 
List with its accompaniment of public names, and that he 
yielded only at the solicitation of the Committee on the 
Post Office and Post-roads ; that prior to the completion 
of the Amended List it had been submitted in its unfinished 
state to the chairman of this committee, Mr. Overstreet, 
who had expressed himself satisfied with its form and sub- 
stance, and that during the preparation of this precious 
document it had been carefully shielded from all eyes, ex- 
cept those working upon it. The Special Committee's re- 
port contained also the letters (Letters B, C and D) which 
had been omitted from the report of the Committee on the 
Post Office and Post-roads and corrected the dates in 
Letters A and G. The genesis of the odious head-line was 
also traced and the fact developed that, although it had 
originated in the Printing Office, copies of the report 
with the objectionable head-lines thick upon them had 
been in the hands of the Clerk of the Committee on the 
Post Office and Post-roads thirty hours before any ob- 
jection had been made to them or change requested on 
account of their phraseology. 



*' i he Charges Concerning Members" 155 

Thus it will be seen that the report of the Select Com- 
mittee by bringing out the real facts, and all the facts, had 
exonerated Mr. Payne and his department from all blame, 
and had placed whatever culpability there was in making 
the disclosure contained in the amended list, and what- 
ever disgrace followed on account of the exposure, pri- 
marily upon the Committee on the Post Office and Post- 
roads of the House of Representatives. 

On April 9, 1904, and prior to the publication of the 
report of the Select Committee, the post office appropria- 
tion bill for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1905, was 
pending in the Senate. In the course of the debate which 
took place Senator Spooner took occasion to defend the 
administration of the Post Office Department by Mr. 
Payne, and to vindicate him from the aspersions which 
had been cast upon him. The speech of Senator Spooner 
aroused widespread interest and was of salutary effect. 
Quotations from it have already been made in this 
biography.* 

Notwithstanding exoneration, and notwithstanding it 
was evident that continued criticism from Democratic 
sources was intended merely to influence votes at the im- 
pending presidential election, Mr. Payne felt keenly the 
injustice to which he had been subjected, and which had 
added to the deepening shadows gathering about his life. 

Upon arising from his sick bed on April 10, 1904, 
Mr. Payne took a sea voyage on the United States 
revenue cutter Onondaga, which had been ordered to 
Galveston, Texas. This rest afforded him temporary 

* Pages 119, 137- 



15G Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



benefit. Returning he left the vessel at Charleston, South 
Carolina, fearing- the storms and roughness off Cape 
Hatteras. 

Captain Worth G. Ross, of the Onondaga, with whom 
this, as well as several other ocean trips had been taken, 
has given a sketch of Mr. Payne in the following lan- 
guage : 

The death of General Payne was to me in the nature of a great 
personal loss. There was no one in eminent public position whom I 
knew so well, for I had had the advantages of close and friendly 
relations with him under exceptional circumstances. To sail with a 
man is usually to form a very clear estimate of his character, as 
changing and unlooked for conditions on shipboard are sure to bring 
out his true points. The cruises I made with General Payne, who 
was a guest of my ship, I recall with singular pleasure, and account 
them as among the most interesting of my experience. Notwith- 
standing his poor health at the time, these trips were not arranged 
for his convenience, but were availed of by him during the regular 
service of the vessel, and one of them at least was made at a season 
of the year when disquieting weather was the rule rather than 
otherwise. He was an ardent lover of the sea in all its phases, and 
under its influence he seemed at once to gain in strength and spirits. 
Appreciative always of its gentler moods, he was ever impressed 
with the grandeur of the storm. I saw him in as joyous a temper 
as any, I think, on one occasion when we were rounding the famed 
Hatteras with the white-crested waves sweeping over the bows of 
the ship. He derived much pleasure by being out on deck, at which 
times I was often his companion. The far-reaching expanse of 
ocean, still and listless under a smiling sky or convulsed by gather- 
ing storm winds, had a great fascination for him. 

His acute powers of observation, a natural gift, were a matter 
of surprise to me. It was a rare thing, too, when he couldn't name 
offhand our compass course within a point. Always a good sailor he 
was besides a model shipmate. Whatever were the discomforts and 
perplexities, and there are usually many during a sea voyage, he 
was constantly cheerful under them, a complaint not once passing 
his lips, while he was particularly averse to having distinctive atten- 
tions shown him, his desire being to share all things alike with those 
around him. These qualities especially appealed to me and those of 
my command in view of the shadow that was then upon him. His 
quiet, unassuming, and straight forward methods were a marked trait 
in his character and were exemplified time and again when he called, 



"The Charges Concerning Members" 157 

unannounced and unpretentiously, on postmasters and other offi- 
cials in the various ports, both large and small, we happened to 
enter. 

General Payne was an entertaining talker, clear and forceful, 
fond of a story and often telling a good one himself. He was, 
moreover, an appreciative listener, quick to catch a point which, if it 
struck his fancy, he enjoyed most heartily. I never knew him to 
introduce the subject of politics into a conversation, and it is cer- 
tain that no one would have become aware of his astuteness in that 
particular from any voluntary statement of his own. 

Among the strong attributes of his character — "the flower and 
native growth of noble mind'' — were his unvarying patience and 
fortitude under suffering, his gentleness and tender consideration at 
all times for others, an unaffected, open-hearted generosity, com- 
plete naturalness, a sincerity and strength of purpose, and unbounded 
patriotism. His creed was a simple one and he lived up to it: 

"To do my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please 
God to call me." 

There was none who came to know General Payne who did not 
soon cherish a real affection for him. He possessed the finer qual- 
ities of mind and heart, and taken all in all, was a remarkable man. 

Association with Mr. Payne always produced affec- 
tion. In speaking of him Mr. Leslie M. Shaw, Secretary 
of the Treasury, says : 

Henry Payne was one of the best men I ever knew and one of 
the best friends that ever lived. His loss will long be felt by his 
associates and friends, and all his associates were his friends. 

In the same strain spoke Mr. John Hay, then Secre- 
tary of State : 

I find it difficult to speak about a subject so near to my heart 
as this. In common with every one who knew Mr. Payne, I had not 
only a high regard and esteem for him, but sincere affection. 

He was a man of peculiarly lovable character, a man so sincere 
and genuine and upright himself that he was slow to believe evil of 
any one else; but if he had reason to think that his confidence had 
been abused, no one was quicker to punish wrong-doing and the 
wrong-doer than he was. 

He rapidly won the respect and regard of every one with whom 
he was brought in contact, and his death will make a deep impression 
in Washington, not only through a sense of personal bereavement, 
but also the feeling that the country has lost a patriotic citizen and a 
most valuable public servant. 



158 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Hardly among those who knew him and valued him in his own 
state will there be more genuine grief than here among those who 
only a few years ago were comparative strangers to him. 

Mr. Victor H. Metcalf, then Secretary of Commerce 
and Labor, thus expressed himself : 

I have known Mr. Payne intimately for many years, and I re- 
gard his death as a national loss. He possessed great force of char- 
acter and business aptitude. He devoted his entire time to the 
duties of his office and the unceasing attention he gave to it, to my 
mind, accounts for his untimely taking off. I think he was the most 
lovable man that I ever met, and possessed the kindliest disposition 
of any man I have ever known. 

His whole heart and soul were in his work. It could not be 
otherwise, for it was the ambition of his life to be postmaster- 
general, and he possessed admirable fitness for the position because 
of the previous training received. 

Mr. Paul Morton, then Secretary of the Navy, ex- 
claimed : 

We shall all miss his wise counsel and good judgment. 

Secretary Wilson of the Department of Agriculture, 
who entered the cabinet at the beginning of the McKinley 

administration, used this language : 

Mr. Payne was such a genial gentleman that the Cabinet offi- 
cials regret his death as a personal loss. The work of the post 
office department is heavy, and is growing greater all the time. Mr. 
Payne was a thoroughly trained business man, possessing a knowl- 
edge of his work, and carried this work into successful administra- 
tion. 

In the discharge of his duties the Postmaster-General sees more 
of the President than any other member of the Cabinet, and thus is 
thrown into closer official relationship with the chief executive. In 
this capacity Mr. Payne's judgment in regard to national affairs 
was of great service. He knew the country and was familiar with 
the lines along which it was growing and developing. Mr. Payne's 
value and service can well be epitomized by saying that he was a 
high type of the American business man. Personally my relations 
with him have been close. We were both western men with many 
views in common, and I was greatly attached to him. 



"The Charges Concerning Membi 159 

Secretary Hitchcock of the Interior Department, thus 
expressed his feelings : 

The Government has lost a faithful servant ; Republican prin- 
ciples a loyal and earnest supporter, and his associates a genial and 
steadfast friend, while those who knew him intimately realize what 
an irreparable loss his family have sustained. 

Mr. Joseph G. Cannon, Speaker of the House, tele- 
graphed while on a campaigning tour in Minnesota : 

Mr. Payne was my good friend through many years, and I 
mourn his death as I appreciate his friendship and his public service. 

Perhaps may be properly placed here some words 
from the pen of Air. Powell Clayton, of Eureka Springs, 
Arkansas, member of the Republican National Committee, 
and Ambassador to Mexico from 1897 to 1905 : 

Some twenty-two years ago it was my good fortune to make 
the acquaintance of Henry C. Payne : an acquaintance which soon 
ripened into a friendship which was only interrupted by the inter- 
vention of death. During the long period of its existence I had 
many opportunities to observe, and acquaint myself with, his char- 
acteristics, which, I feel, justifies me in saying that, as a friend, he 
was always steadfast and loyal ; as a business man he did not achieve 
success by rudely thrusting aside or trampling under foot his com- 
petitors. His business methods and acts were fair and honorable ; 
as a politician he belonged to that school which regards the words 
"Politics" and "Statesmanship" as so near akin as to be almost 
synonymous. Although firm and courageous in his convictions he 
was tolerant of the opinions of others ; as a public official, with 
scrupulous integrity and untiring zeal he bent all of his faculties to 
the work assigned him, frequently devoting hours to it when, had 
he listened to nature's admonitions, he would have been at his home 
in bed. In a few words, I believe, if the life of Henry C. Payne 
were truthfully written and placed in the hands of the poor, strug- 
gling youths of America, it would furnish a lamp to light their feet 
through many a dangerous place and perplexing labyrinth in life's 
pathway — an inspiration to noble and heroic deeds in a fair field of 
competition for life's alluring prizes. 

A friendship particularly close and sympathetic ex- 
isted between Mr. Payne and Air. Joseph H. Manley, of 
Augusta, Maine, a member of the Republican National 



160 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

Committee. And because Mr. Manley himself has since 
followed Mr. Payne in death I venture to transcribe entire 
a letter from him, written upon hearing of the loss sus- 
tained by Mrs. Payne : 

Augusta, Maine, ioth October, 1904. 
My Dear Mrs. Payne: 

I received the sad news of dear Mr. Payne's death with great 
sorrow. I have known him these many years, and always found 
him a lovable, kind, affectionate man. He was the soul of honor, 
always thoughtful of others, giving his life really for others, a great 
lover of his country, and a true and zealous and honest party man. 
His death will be a great loss to President Roosevelt, the Republican 
party, to Wisconsin and the country at large. What it is to you 
and his friends I cannot cross the threshold of your grief to say. 
You will always have his bright and happy and cheerful life to re- 
member. You will know how thoughtful and affectionate he was 
to you and those closely connected with him. Your loss will be 
great, and I can only offer you my heartfelt sorrow. 

I trust the good God will give you strength to bear your great 
grief and keep you up in your terrible affliction. 

You have my deepest sympathy. 

I am, sincerely yours, 

J. H. Manley. 

The death of Senator Hanna, which had occurred in 
Washington, February 15, 1904, had imposed additional 
duties upon Mr. Payne when, physically, he was ill pre- 
pared to assume them. As vice chairman of the Re- 
publican National Committee the acting chairmanship fell 
to Mr. Payne and he performed the duties necessary to 
the position preliminary to the Republican National Con- 
vention. This body convened at Chicago, June 21, 1904. 
On June 15, 1904, at the Auditorium Hotel in that city, 
just prior to the meeting of the National Convention at 
which he was to preside, Mr. Payne was taken suddenly 
ill and was unable to be present at the meeting. Senator 
Scott, of West Virginia, presided in his stead. Air. Payne 
rallied sufficiently to be present at the meeting of the 



"The Charges Concerning Members" 161 

Committee held two days later, June 17, but felt too feeble 
for the arduous duty of presiding. He was sufficiently 
recovered to attend the last meeting- of the Committee, 
held June 20, at which he was formally elected chairman 
as successor to Senator Hanna. On June 21, at noon, 
Mr. Payne called to order the Republican National Con- 
vention of 1904, being greeted with great applause from 
convention and galleries as he arose to perform his duty. 
As he was beginning he was interrupted by the chairman 
of the Chicago Citizens' Committee who, in its behalf, 
presented him with a gavel inscribed, "Mr. Henry C. 
Payne, Chairman Republican National . Convention, 
1904." Using this symbol of authority, Mr. Payne then 
introduced Mr. Elihu Root as the temporary chairman of 
the Convention and withdrew. Of the new National Com- 
mittee formed after the Convention had nominated 
Roosevelt and Fairbanks, Mr. George B. Cortelyou was 
chosen chairman, and Mr. Payne no longer led Repub- 
lican hosts to Republican triumphs. After a short visit to 
Milwaukee, destined to be his last, Mr. Payne returned to 
Washington. 

On July 11, 1904, he, with Mrs. Payne and her niece, 
Miss Louise Jones, left Washington again, to have the 
pleasure and benefit of another sea voyage with Captain 
Ross. This was a jaunt along the New England coast to 
Portland, Maine, upon the trial cruise of the revenue cut- 
ter Mohawk. At Portland the party were the guests for 
two days at the home of Mrs. Payne's cousin, Mr. Elias 
Thomas. The cruise ended at Boston July 21, 1904, and 
the Postmaster-General returned to his desk in Wash- 
ington. 



162 Henry Clay Payxe : A Life 



CHAPTER XVII 



£&e Last a&tngs 

On September I, 1904, Mr. Payne, accompanied by 
his wife, visited his sister, Mrs. Cameron, in Jamestown, 
New York. Upon the evening of his arrival a reception 
was tendered to their guests by Mr. and Mrs. Cameron, 
which was largely attended by the citizens — men, women 
and children — of Jamestown and surrounding places. 
Upon the next day Mr. Payne assisted at the opening of 
the new post office building, which, although not quite 
ready for occupancy, was fitted up for a reception tend- 
ered to Mr. Payne, the reception forming a part of the 
opening exercises. A general invitation was issued to 
the citizens of Jamestown and surrounding towns, many 
flocked to meet him and all gave him a most cordial wel- 
come. This structure has since been completed, and a 
picture of Mr. Payne now hangs in one of the offices in 
recollection of the initial ceremonies, and as the portrait 
of a friend whom the people in Jamestown "had learned 
both to respect and to love." 

From Jamestown Mr. and Mrs. Payne, accompanied 
by Mr. and Mrs. Cameron, journeyed into New England, 
having at their service the private car Minnesota, tendered 
them by Mr. Albert J. Earling, president of the Chicago, 
Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway Company. Their first 
stop was at North Adams, Massachusetts, where Mr. 
Payne added to the party his childhood friend and in- 



The Last Things 163 



structor, Miss Diana S. Bowen and Miss Eliza I. May- 
nard, an old time friend. Leaving- North Adams in the 
afternoon of Monday, September 5, they drove over the 
Hoosac Mountain (a favorite boyhood drive of Mr. 
Payne's) to Shelburne Falls, in order to enjoy the better 
the delightsome scenery and to recall more quietly and 
thus more effectively the pleasant memories of early years. 
The party arrived in Shelburne Falls late on Monday and 
obtained entertainment at the hotel there. In the morn- 
ing of Tuesday, September 6, Henry — for so his child- 
hood comrades still fondly called him — drove about the 
village, ruminating of the early days; recalling and rever- 
encing the memory of his parents, renewing many old 
friendships and winning many new friends by his geniality 
and sunny disposition. In the afternoon of Tuesday, the 
Payne party, re-enforced by their friends, Mr. and Mrs. 
Edwin Baker, of Shelburne Falls, visited Ashfield Plain, 
the natal place of Mr. Payne and of his sister. After be- 
ing entertained by Mr. and Mrs. Porter, hosts of the Ash- 
field House, the visitors returned by way of Conway to 
Shelburne Falls. On Wednesday morning, September 7, 
the party drove to Charlemont, where they attended the 
annual sratherinsf of the Old Folks' Association of Charle- 
mont. In the evening they were entertained by the Shel- 
burne Falls Club, where Mr. Payne spoke feelingly and 
entertainingly of his childhood and youth among his lis- 
teners forty years before. On Thursday, September 8, he 
attended a campfire of Company H, Tenth Massachusetts 
Infantry Regiment, — the company which in 1862 had re- 
fused him enlistment. On Friday he bade final farewell 
to Shelburne Falls. 



164 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



More than nine months after this, on June 21, 1905, 
President Roosevelt, journeying through western Massa- 
chusetts upon the occasion of receiving the degree of 
doctor of laws from Williams College, requested that his 
train might stop at Shelburne Falls, exclaiming to the 
throng of assembled citizens: "I wanted to stop here 
where my valued friend, Henry C. Payne, afterwards 
Postmaster-General, passed his early years, and to say a 
word of tribute to the memory of as gentle and loyal a 
soul as ever took part in public life." 

On Friday, September 9, 1904, the Payne party ar- 
rived from Shelburne Falls in Northampton, where they 
remained over the ensuing Sunday at the Norwood Hotel. 
To seek his fortune in the then distant west he, an un- 
known lad, had left this city more than two score years 
before ; he returned now, full of years and honors, to re- 
visit the old scenes, to re-cherish the old friends, to recall 
the old memories, and then, a few days later only — for so 
it was to be — to close the volume of his life and die. 

The morning of Saturday, September 10, was spent in 
receiving and visiting friends, the afternoon in drives, and 
the evening at a reception tendered to Mr. Payne by the 
Northampton Club. After a quiet Sunday, the little party 
made a visit to Mount Tom in the morning of Monday. In 
the afternoon Mr. and Mrs. Albert E. Smith, of Spring- 
field, former Northampton friends of Mr. Payne, toured 
over from Springfield in their automobile and took Mr. and 
Mrs. Payne a ride of sixty-five miles in length, through 
Deerfield, Hatfield, Sunderland and Amherst— a choice 
experience for Mr. Payne, for he thus revisited boyhood 
friends and haunts. On Tuesday, September 13, promi- 
nent citizens and friends from Greenfield tendered him a 



The Last Things 165 



dinner, drive and reception, on accepting- which a delega- 
tion came with a private electric car to escort him to the 
old town, where the party passed a most enjoyable day. 
On Wednesday morning there was a quiet drive to and 
about Turner's Falls, and on Wednesday afternoon, Sep- 
tember 14, Mr. and Mrs. Payne started in the Minnesota 
for New York and Washington. This had been a trip of 
great interest and enjoyment to Mr. Payne, but it had 
caused great fatigue. 

One of the last drives about the capital taken by Mr. 
Payne — a favorite spot with him — was to visit a place, 
indicated by markers, where lie buried two members of 
his favorite Company H of the Tenth Massachusetts, 
Michael Doherty and William Mehan, who had died in 
the fall of 1 86 1 when this troop was stationed at Wash- 
ington for its defense. 

On Saturday, September 24, 1904, he, with his wife, 
attended the last social gathering in which he was to 
participate. This was a dinner given by President and 
Mrs. Roosevelt in honor of Most Reverend Randall 
Thomas Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, England, 
who, with his wife, was then visiting in Washington. 

On Tuesday, September 27, 1904, Mr. Payne attended 
the customary cabinet meeting, and in the afternoon took 
a short drive to Rock Creek Park, but that night his sleep 
was restless and disturbed. On Wednesday forenoon he 
sat at his desk at the Post Office Department, but feeling 
unequal to the labor he did not return after luncheon. 
Wednesday night he became very ill. The newspapers of 
the country received dispatches on Thursday that "Post- 
master-General Henry C. Payne is seriously ill at his 
apartments at the Hotel Arlington here. Marked symp- 



166 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



toms of heart trouble have developed and his condition be- 
came so serious during the day as to cause grave con- 
cern." Nevertheless, during the early period of his ill- 
ness, he devoted much time and energy to public busi- 
ness, dictating important letters, receiving information 
about pressing affairs and eagerly inquiring for news of 
the political battle that then was disturbing the country. 

His physician was Dr. G. Lloyd Magruder, who, how- 
ever, received the daily counsel and the diagnosis of Dr. 
Presley M. Rixey, surgeon-general of the navy, Dr. Cary 
T. Grayson, also of the navy, and Dr. William Osier, a 
specialist in diseases of the heart, from Johns Hopkins 
University at Baltimore. Daily bulletins were issued by 
the physicians, but from the first the information con- 
veyed thereby was disheartening. There was a succession 
of sinking spells, each of increasing severity and the rally 
from each left the patient on a lower level, until exhausted 
nature forbade further rallies. On the afternoon of Sun- 
day, October 2, Mrs. Payne fearing that the end was then 
imminent, sent for the Rev. Roland Cotton Smith, D.D., 
of St. John's Episcopal Church, Washington, by whom 
prayers suitable to the solemn hour were read. Mean- 
while the relatives of Mr. Payne and of his wife had been 
summoned and had arrived at the bedside. 

The deepest concern was felt and exhibited by the 
President and his official family. Every day, sometimes 
twice daily, Mr. Roosevelt called, and, although forbidden 
to see his friend, remained in the outer rooms hoping for 
news of improvement. Mrs. Roosevelt was a frequent 
soothing visitor to Mrs. Payne, and when duties prevented 
a daily call sent floral substitutes from the White House 
conservatories. The cabinet officers and members of their 
families, the Justices of the Supreme Court, Ambassadors, 
the Admiral of the Navy, the officials of the Post Office 



The Last Things 167 



Department, the representatives of foreign governments, 
and others high in rank then in the city, either called in 
person or sent frequent messengers of inquiry. 

Mrs. Payne, although herself an invalid, and although 
feeling that all efforts were to be unavailing, kept con- 
stant vigil with the physicians and nurses, and wore out 
her own strength in the watch about the bedside of him 
who had her name almost always upon his lips. How 
frequent to her thought must have been the reminiscence 
of her early married life in Milwaukee when the strong 
husband, now stricken and doomed to death, was her 
affectionate, loyal and constant minister! 

Towards seven o'clock in the evening of Monday, 
October 3, there was apparently a wonderful improve- 
ment in the sufferer's condition and there was the swell- 
ing of hope in the hearts of the unskilled. But to the 
waiting physicians it was the last supreme rally before 
the end. Then delirium supervened and mingled with 
affectionate expressions for his wife were orders con- 
cerning the presidential contest then raging. At noon of 
Tuesday the sick man relapsed into unconsciousness, out 
of which he did not emerge. His last words were, "Tell 
him I want to see him before he goes." His Private Secre- 
tary, Mr. Whitney, was standing at the time by the bed- 
side and after Mr. Payne had recognized him with a few 
words, the above order was addressed to the attending 
physician with reference to Mr. Whitney.* These words 



♦Concerning Mr. Whitney I venture to copy the following sen- 
tences from a despatch of October 5, T904, from the Washington 
correspondent of the Milwaukee Sentinel, to that newspaper: 

A faithful and devoted friend and servant through twelve years 
of active busmen life, in the details of departmental duty here, and 
down to the hour of his death, has been Mr. Payne's private secre- 
tary, Francis H. Whitney, of Milwaukee. Mr. Whitney came with 
Mr". Payne when the latter entered the department, lie was wholly 
unaccustomed to official life, but he accustomed himself to the de- 



168 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

had been Mr. Payne's frequent order while at his desk, 
and at this last hour he used them doubtless from force 
of habit. 

Late in the afternoon of Tuesday the President came 
— the last caller upon Mr. Payne outside of those upon 
duty with him. Mr. Roosevelt remained until six o'clock. 
Issuing from the rooms, to those in waiting outside he 
pronounced his dying friend to be "the sweetest, most 
lovable, and most trustful man he ever knew." 

At ten minutes past six o'clock in the evening of Tues- 
day, October 4, 1904, the soul of Mr. Payne left his weary 
body. There were present at his bedside besides Mrs. 
Payne and her relatives, and the kinsfolk of Mr. Payne, 
the Rev. E. Slater Dunlap of St. John's Episcopal Church, 
Mr. and Mrs. William L. Mason, of Washington, Mr. 
Payne's Secretary Mr. Whitney, Miss Marie Barbieri 
who was Mrs. Payne's attendant, and the colored messen- 
ger of the Post Ofnce Department. 

The official bulletin of the physicians read : 
The Postmaster-General died at 6:10 p.m. He died peacefully 
without a struggle. Cause of death, disease of mitral valve and 
dilatation of the heart. 

P. M. Rixey, 

G. Lloyd Magruder, 

C. T. Grayson. 



tails of his position and endeared himself to the multitude of callers 
who daily thronged the rooms of the Postmaster-General. 

Although young, he was ever discreet and exhibited a high sense 
of propriety upon all occasions, and the tact and good^ judgment 
which become the closest companion of one in high official place. 
In the long sad hours of Mr. Payne's last illness Mr. Whitney has 
been in constant attendance, looking after the wants of the family, 
meeting and advising with visitors, and keeping the outside world 
advised by information carefully disseminated to the newspaper cor- 
respondents. At all hours of the day and night since Wednesday 
last Mr. Whitney has been accessible, and his devotion was one of 
the touching incidents of the long hours of ceaseless vigil. 



The Last Things 169 

The Secretary of Mr. Payne was overwhelmed with 
messages of condolence, sympathy and sorrow, addressed 
to him and to Mrs. Payne from all sections of the country 
and particularly from the home city and state. These 
have been preserved and in their arranged and bound con- 
dition evidence eloquently the esteem and affection so 
widely and so universally felt for him who had gone. 
Among the first to send a message of sorrow was Mr. 
Albert J. Earling of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul 
Railway Company, who, with his message of sympathy, 
placed his private car at the service of the family for the 
sad journey to Milwaukee. 

Upon the day after Mr. Payne's death the President 
issued the following proclamation : 

To the People of the United States: 

Henry Clay Payne, Postmaster-General of the United States, 
died in this city at 10 minutes past 6 o'clock yesterday afternoon. 

Rising to eminence by his own efforts, successful in his enter- 
prises, attaining to positions of high trust in private business, ener- 
getic and conscientious in his relations with his fellow men, of singu- 
larly gentle, loyal and lovable nature, inspired by a large sense of 
the duties of a true citizen, and winning the respect and esteem of 
all with whom he associated, he was called in the fullness of his 
powers to discharge the duties of a peculiarly onerous and respon- 
sible office in the high councils of the nation. His career is an ex- 
ample for good citizens to follow, and his untimely death is mourned 
by all. 

The President directs that the several executive departments 
and their dependencies shall show fitting regard for the memory of 
this distinguished public man; that the departments in the city of 
Washington shall be closed between the hours of 9 o'clock a.m. and 
1 o'clock p.m. on the day of the funeral, Friday, the 7th inst., and 
that the national flag shall be displayed at half-mast upon all the 
public buildings throughout the United States from now until the 
funeral shall have taken place. 

By direction of the President. 

John' Hay. 
Department of State, 

Washington, Oct. 5, 1904. 



170 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Upon the same day the following message was cabled 
by the general postal authorities in London : 

London, October 5. 

The Post Office Department, Washington. 

Lord Stanley, his Majesty's Postmaster-General, and Mr. Bab- 
ington Smith, Secretary of the British Post Office, desire to express 
their deep sympathy with the Post Office Department of the United 
States in the heavy loss which it has sustained in the death of H. C. 
Payne, the Postmaster-General. 

On Thursday, October 6, the following proclamation 
was issued by the Governor of Wisconsin : 

It is my painful duty to announce to the people of Wisconsin 
that Henry C. Payne, Postmaster-General of the United States, died 
in the city of Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 4. 

In the death of Henry C. Payne the state of Wisconsin loses 
one of its most widely known and distinguished citizens. He was 
prominently identified for the greater part of his life with state and 
national politics. His commanding ability and unusual genius as an 
organizer won him success and a reputation both as a politician and 
a business man. His genial personality, generous nature and sym- 
pathetic qualities made him a delightful companion. His friendships 
were warm and lasting, and he will be honored by a far-reaching 
circle of loving friends and associates. 

In respect to his memory, I direct that the national flag be dis- 
played at half-mast on all municipal buildings until sundown of the 
day of the burial. 

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused 
the great seal of the state of Wisconsin to be affixed. Drawn at the 
capitol, in the city of Madison, this sixth day of October, in the 
year of our Lord 1904. 

Robert M. LaFollette. 

On the same day the following proclamation was 
issued by the Mayor of Milwaukee: 

Henry Clay Payne, a citizen of Milwaukee, is dead. In many 
positions of private and public trust he reflected much honor upon 
our city. At his demise he was Postmaster-General of the United 
States, and as such a member of the presidential cabinet, an exalted 
station and so regarded by all men. We recall his eventful and 



The Last Things 171 

honorable career only with patriotic memory. Partisan considera- 
tions died with him, and we deplore his loss as a citizen, as a man, 
and as a public servant. 

It is eminently fitting that our people should show their appre- 
ciation of his worth, of the honor which in official station he brought 
to our municipality, our esteem for him as a neighbor, and manifest 
sorrow at his untimely departure. 

I therefore direct that flags be displayed at half-mast from the 
city hall and from all departments and public buildings until his 
funeral obsequies shall be ended. 

It is so ordered. 

David S. Rose, Mayor. 

The funeral in Washington occurred at 1 1 o'clock on 
the morning of Friday, October 7, 1904, at Saint John's 
Protestant Episcopal Church, the Rev. Roland Cotton 
Smith, D.D., the rector, officiating, assisted by the Rev. E. 
Slater Dunlap. The church was thronged with mourn- 
ing friends, including the President and Mrs. Roosevelt, 
the members of the cabinet and their families, the Admiral 
of the Navy, the Chief of the General Staff*, the Supreme 
Court of the District of Columbia, Senators, Members of 
the House of Representatives, the Members of the Diplo- 
matic Corps and the officials of the Post Office Depart- 
ment. These last officials occupied the entire right side 
of the church. 

The services were marked by great simplicity and 
consisted of the reading of the burial service and the sing- 
ing of hymns selected by Mrs. Payne, "Lead, Kindly 
Light," "Jesus, Lover of My Soul," and "Hark, Hark, 
My Soul." 

The chancel was fragrant with flowers sent by friends 
everywhere. Among these were flowers from the dele- 
gates of the German postal administration, from the 
Brazilian charge d' affaires, and from the Argentine lega- 



172 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

tion. The only flowers upon the casket were those placed 
there on behalf of Mrs. Payne, her niece, Miss Jones, and 
the President and Mrs. Roosevelt. 

The casket was borne from the residence to the church 
upon the shoulders of eight uniformed letter carriers, fol- 
lowed on foot by the family, members of the cabinet and 
of the household. Officials and others of the Post Office 
Department and all the letter carriers of Washington 
marched from the Department to the church and thence 
to the depot, surrounding and following the casket, form- 
ing a guard of honor. The train, in charge of Secretary 
Whitney, left the station of the Pennsylvania Railroad at 
3 135 o'clock in the afternoon of Friday, the casket being 
in Mr. Earling's private car, the Minnesota, which was 
appropriately draped. 

The train with the casket arrived in Milwaukee on 
Saturday afternoon at 2 120 o'clock ; there being in the 
party besides the relatives of Mr. Payne and Mrs. Payne, 
Secretaries Wilson, Metcalf, Morton and Hitchcock of 
the cabinet, Doctors Magruder and Grayson, Mr. Earl- 
ing and Mr. Whitney. 

As the train arrived prior to the scheduled time, the 
car containing the casket was sidetracked at the station 
of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Road, under the 
guard of a detail of police. At about half past seven 
o'clock Saturday evening the casket was removed to the 
City Hall, under the charge of the letter carriers and ac- 
companied by the honorary pall bearers, members of the 
Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, Chamber of 
Commerce and Old Settlers' Club. 

In the rotunda the casket, with a guard of honor, re- 



The Last Things 173 



mained all night, the walls of the rotunda being covered 
with black cloth, and draped with Alabama smilax, the 
floor banked on all sides with spreading palms and ferns, 
while all about on pedestals and stands, from friends 
everywhere, was a wealth of flowers and floral emblems. 
Among these was the gift of President and Mrs. Roose- 
velt, a wreath of roses. 

From 8 130 o'clock until midnight of Saturday a 
steady stream of people viewed the silent face in the 
opened casket, and from eight o'clock of Sunday morn- 
ing until noon the same stream of respectful and solemn 
citizens and friends filed past the body. 

At three o'clock on Sunday afternoon, the simple 
burial service of the Episcopal Church was read in All 
Saints' Cathedral by the Right Reverend Isaac L. Nichol- 
son, Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Milwaukee, assisted 
by Rev. Canon C. B. B. Wright. The church was crowded 
with the friends of Mr. Payne. Delegations represented 
the Republican National Committee, the Chicago and Mil- 
waukee post offices, the Chamber of Commerce of Mil- 
waukee, Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, Old 
Settlers' Club and Society of Colonial Wars for the State 
of Wisconsin. The honorary pall bearers were Paul D. 
Morton, Victor H. Metcalf, James Wilson and William 
S. Shallenberger, of Washington; James G. Jenkins, 
Joseph V. Quarles, Frank G. Bigelow, Charles F. Pfister, 
John I. Beggs, Alfred L. Gary, Irving M. Bean, Gustav 
G. Pabst, George P. Miller, Howard Morris. Charles E. 
Dyer, Oliver C. Fuller, Horace M. Brown. Winslow A. 
No well, David Vance, Leroy C. Whitney, John D. Mc- 
Leod, Henry F. Whitcomb, Charles Schley, David C. 



174 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Owen, of Milwaukee; John C. Spooner, Elisha W. Keyes, 
of Madison; Graeme Stewart, George R. Peck, of Chi- 
cago ; Elmer Dover, of Washington, D. C. ; Harry S. 
New, of Indianapolis; David W. Mulvane, of Topeka, 
Kansas; R. B. Schneider, of Fremont, Nebraska.* 

The active pall bearers and guard of honor were 
selected from the main office and stations of the Milwau- 
kee post office. 

The burial was in the family lot in Forest Home 
cemetery. 

*Of these Messrs. Dyer, Nowell and Stewart have since died. 



"An Unappreciated Type" 175 



CHAPTER XVI 1 1 



"3n (Unappreciated Cppe" 

Perhaps no more just appreciation of the work of Mr. 
Payne in public life can be given than that presented in 
the following editorial entitled, "An Unappreciated Type," 
in the Minneapolis Tribune of October 6, 1904: 

A life of modest usefulness to his countrymen ended with the 
death of Henry C. Payne. He had no inclination, perhaps no fitness, 
for the higher work of constructive statesmanship that has occupied 
his lifelong fellow worker, Senator Spooner. He was content with 
the obscurer work of party and administrative management, which 
has rarely been done with more constant regard to the general good. 
He was not a self-seeker, though he welcomed the reward that came 
at last to a lifetime of service. 

For a third of a century other men reaped the fruitage of public 
station for which he toiled unremittingly in the service of his party. 
Among these men are some whose names will be more permanently 
connected with the history of Wisconsin and the country than his 
own. Before he is forgotten he should receive just recognition for 
his part in creating their opportunity for gaining personal fame and 
doing public service. 

Mr. Payne, like Senator Hanna, belonged to an unappreciated 
type. The politician is a necessary agent in the public life of a free 
country. The lower rewards of the service often tempt unworthy 
men into it. They who despise these lower rewards, as Mr. Payne 
did, must be content with scant recognition from contemporaries 
and brief remembrance by posterity. All the more reason for doing 
them justice while they live and when they die. 

Mr. Payne was a politician because he liked to play the game 
and to succeed in it. If not the highest ambition, it is an honorable 
one. He did not make politics a profession. He did not enrich 
himself in it. He carried the double burden of large private affairs 
and unpaid service to the country in the form of service to the party 
he believed in. Party is necessary in Republican government, and 
this service, when highly and unselfishly done, is as honorable, al- 
though not so glorious, as making laws and ruling nations. 



176 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 

Because the foregoing article has made prominent the 

career of Mr. Payne as a politician I have reserved for 

this position an estimate of his political life from the pen 

and heart of Mr. James S. Clarkson, surveyor of the port 

of New York, at one time chairman of the Republican 

National Committee : 

As I now remember it, I became well acquainted with Henry 
Payne in 1876, and at the Republican National Convention, in Cin- 
cinnati, in that year, the same occasion on which I was first brought 
into intimate association with Senator Piatt, of New York, Governor 
Foraker, of Ohio, Senator Quay, of Pennsylvania, Mr. Fessenden, of 
Connecticut, Mr. Hobart, of New Jersey, General Alger, of Michi- 
gan, and other great spirits with whom Mr. Payne and I afterwards, 
and for nearly a generation of active politics, became so closely asso- 
ciated in national conventions and in the campaigns of the National 
Committee afterwards and in strong personal friendships as well. 
In that year Blaine's star was rising to its long-time supremacy in 
the political sky, and the Republican party's leaders were dividing 
themselves in eager rivalry between him and General Grant — a 
division which lasted for nearly a generation of active contests. I well 
remember the year 1876 as the beginning of many conspicuous and 
enduring personal friendships between large groups of party leaders; 
and it will always be left to me to remember that in that year of 
great party events and the development of so many great party lead- 
ers I found and formed the most grateful friendships and the dearest 
friends that, outside of kinsmen, I have found in my whole life. My 
experience in politics, too, bears the testimony now of over forty 
years in contradiction of the popular cynical idea that politicians are 
heartless and without sentiment and that political friendships are all 
selfish and fleeting. Instead, I have had personally over a genera- 
tion of continuing proof that more true and lasting friendships are 
formed in politics than in any other profession, or in any other 
division of active and strenuous men, and I have seen more sincere, 
unselfish, and sacrificing friendship and devotion shown among what 
are flippantly called politicians than among all other great groups of 
nun with whom in the business, or even religious, world I have been 
brought in contact. Indeed, the greater riches I have left to me in 
life now are the vivid and grateful memories that I was permitted to 
know in intimate and unchanging friendship such men as Mr. Payne 
and the others I have named, and many more like them, and that 
our friendship for and faith in each other endured in loyalty and 
growing tenderness and devotion for over thirty years and never 



'An Unappreciated Type" 177 



ended. These were friendships that met all tests that intense con- 
flicts bring to all ambitious and militant men, only to grow stronger, 
and that survived all the rivalry, jealousy, and greed of which the 
world of politics is commonly supposed to be made up; and survived 
to remain almost the most precious things in the lives of us all. 
Therefore, when I am told that a book of faithful record of the good 
life and good works of Henry Payne is to be printed, and that I 
may have the privilege and the honor of being among those per- 
mitted to pay him their final tribute, I find myself wondering, not 
what I can say of estimate of him and his usefulness and his no- 
bility, but what of the many things to be said in his praise I shall 
refer to in this short space. 

Of course, I knew of Mr. Payne as early as 1872, as a rising fac- 
tor in western politics, because of his growing prominence and ac- 
tivity in the affairs of Wisconsin ; and had met him incidentally 
several times in Chicago, and once or twice had seen him at Des 
Moines, when he had come into Iowa on political or business er- 
rands. I liked him from the first, because of his engaging and manly 
qualities, and found in him a kindred spirit of earnest Republicanism 
and frank personality. Then young and an eager student of politics, 
I was also attracted to Mr. Payne because he was a Republican from 
Wisconsin, or from one of the two pioneer states in Republicanism, 
or one of the two states that had elected its entire Republican state 
ticket as early as the year 1854 — a crown of honor which it has had 
to share with only one other state. It was a great distinction 
in those days to be a Wisconsin Republican ; and Mr. Payne, though 
then still in his twenties, showed the inspired enthusiasm of his state 
and already was eager for work for the party in the national field. 
But my most distinct recollection of him is that it was at the Cin- 
cinnati convention that I came into intimacy and comradeship with 
him, and also with Senator Sawyer, who was for several years the 
sturdiest and most popular man in the personnel of western Repub- 
licanism, and with John C. Spooner, who was even then revealing 
himself to the party and the nation in his predestined career; and 
already modestly exhibiting, as opportunity came, the rare powers 
of felicitous oratory and unusual legal knowledge, which now for 
several years have been proving their pre-eminent usefulness to his 
party and his country in his admitted position as the leader in con- 
stitutional debate and Republican defense in the United States Sen- 
ate, and in which he has fairly won the title to rank as peer with the 
greatest lawyers in the whole history of that illustrious body. I 
call Mr. Sawyer and Mr. Spooner into companionship with .Mr. 
Payne here because these three men were so closely associated then 
and ever after, as long as they all lived, that I have never heard one 
of them mentioned since that I have not thought of them all ; and let 



178 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



me say it here, at the end of these lengthened years, when two of 
them are gone, always with admiration and affection for them, and 
always with pride that I was honored for nearly a generation with 
their unquestioning and never-changing friendship. These three 
men, in their close friendships for a lifetime, beautifully illustrate 
the claim I have made that the truest and strongest friendships 
among real men are those that are made and proved, and made so 
unchanging and unchangeable as to be practically immortal, in the 
storms and tests and cruelties of politics. Where, in eastern or 
western state, or among western or eastern men, in any profession 
or any division of men, can now be recalled any three men who rep- 
resented in their devotion to each other and in their greater devotion 
to their state and their nation, the devotion that was shown for a 
generation by this illustrious trio composed of Senator Sawyer, 
Senator Spooner and Henry Payne? If you confine it to Wisconsin 
or compare it and Wisconsin with other states and their leaders, 
where are there three other men who ever worked together for a 
whole lifetime with the great devotion, and the resulting greatness 
in achievement, as these strong and splendid men worked for Wis- 
consin? If the expressive phrase of athletics could be properly em- 
ployed for description of such great service in statecraft and party 
devotion, it could be said that no such effective team-work has ever 
been done for any state as these three masters among men — each 
superior to the other in some especial strength and yet all supple- 
menting one another to a perfect union of strength — so loyally did 
for a state which they so intensely desired to serve. No one who 
loves Wisconsin, and no one of any community who loves rare 
strength and fealty in men, can ever in the future fail to admire and 
honor, whether separately or as a whole, the names of Senator 
Sawyer, Senator Spooner, and Postmaster-General Payne. 

In another and more critical sense, too, it would be impossible 
to attempt to give accurately and in anything like faithful measure 
any estimate as to the public work or career of Mr. Payne without 
including these two illustrious men in the discussion; for in the 
nation at large, in all the great National Conventions of the party 
and in all the important campaigns waged by the National Com- 
mittees afterwards with which I had personal and active association, 
or from 1876 to 1896, they were always together, always acting in 
unison, with the one exception of 1892, when Senator Sawyer was 
for Harrison's renomination and Mr. Payne was for Blaine — not 
against Harrison just to be against him, but because he believed, 
with many others of us and with the large majority of the experi- 
enced practical leaders of the party, that Blaine was the only man 
that the Republican party had any possible chance to elect in that 
year. It is also to increase the measurements of Mr. Payne as a 



"An Unappreciated Type" 179 

political leader, to bring him into fellowship and contrast with two 
men so strong and great as Mr. Sawyer and Mr. Spooncr, for in 
some, and in some of the most important respects — in the quantities 
or the mathematics of organization and operation in practical politics, 
in the ability to organize in detail with the largest possible certainty 
of success, in the gift of keeping near to public opinion and in know- 
ing in advance the issues most likely to win in the country at large — 
he was the superior one of the three, just as he was in late years and 
in all the great presidential campaigns one of the two or three 
wisest counsellors of the National Committees, and especially as he 
was in the momentous campaign of 1896 not only the superior of 
Mr. Hanna in knowing what to do to win and, next, in himself 
making the organization to win, but the more fairly and fully en- 
titled to the larger credit for the victory itself. 

I do not know what Mr. Hanna himself said or felt as to the 
transcendent value of Mr. Payne's help in that memorable campaign, 
for I never knew Mr. Hanna well, and so had no chance to know 
of the inner thoughts of his great and courageous mind ; but I shall 
always believe that he knew the great and saving value to him and 
to the party in that campaign of Mr. Payne's consummate mastery 
of organization in detail ; and that he knew also that in perfecting 
this organization for victory Mr. Payne gave his health and, prac- 
tically his life, and was never after that himself again either in 
strength or in spirit. I accept as proof of this belief of mine, Mr. 
Hanna's earnest appeals to President McKinley — the most earnest 
of all his appeals to his Chief — to recognize Mr. Payne's great and 
saving work for the party by granting to him the fulfillment of the 
darling ambition of his life to become Postmaster-General. Mr. 
Hanna must have known — great and unequalled as was his own 
share of the work in that campaign, in organizing sufficient financial 
resources to make victory with close organization not only possible 
but sure — that it was Mr. Payne's marvelous skill alone that gave 
the close organization, and therefore the victory. Mr. Hanna's 
actions afterwards are confirmation to me that he knew this to be 
true ; and it was commonly known that Mr. McKinley's strange 
refusal to give Mr. Payne his just due was one of the greater dis- 
appointments of Mr. Hanna's political life, as it is also known that 
in his undying gratitude to Payne he made to President Roosevelt, 
when opportunity came, the same appeal he had made in vain to 
McKinley. and found in Roosevelt's favorable action very much 
of compensation for the actual sorrow he had constantly felt over 
McKinley's refusal. I believe, too, that it was most largely Mr. 
Hanna's gratitude to President Roosevelt for paying this deserved 
but delayed honor to Mr. Payne, that kept him in 1003 from yielding 
to the appeals of his own friends and of all those who were discon- 



180 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



tented, to become a candidate for President himself. I think no one 
knew this so well or so certainly as Mr. Payne, for in 1903 and 
afterwards, when there was so much effort to induce Mr. Hanna to 
be a candidate against Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Payne constantly asserted 
that there was no ground whatever for this belief and that Mr. 
Hanna was instead at heart for Roosevelt. Mr. Payne was then a 
trusted and political confidant of the President, and those of us who 
knew Henry Payne well knew that he was stating what he personally 
knew to be true ; for all of us knew that it was not in his nature to 
be disloyal to the President or to sympathize in any degree with the 
endeavor then being made to make Hanna a candidate against 
Roosevelt. 

It was in the twelve years of the Republican National Com- 
mittee from 1884 to 1896, or, rather, in the sixteen years from 1880 
to 1896, that I learned to know intimately of the political genius and 
personal nobility of Mr. Payne. He, the same as I, was always con- 
nected with the Executive Committee of the National Committee 
and all its activities during those years. It was during this time in 
service on that committee that there developed a strong group of 
strenuous men who early became and always remained close and 
devoted friends. Particularly was there developed a very earnest 
friendship between Mr. Fessenden of Connecticut, Mr. Hobart of 
New Jersey, Mr. Payne of Wisconsin, Mr. Kerens of Missouri, 
Colonel Goodloe of Kentucky, General Dudley of Indiana, Colonel 
Conger of Ohio, and myself from Iowa; and, in different yet equally 
earnest degree, Senator Quay of Pennsylvania and Senator Piatt of 
New York: but the earliest, closest and longest friendship was that 
established between Mr. Fessenden, Mr. Hobart, Mr. Payne and my- 
self. In all the National Conventions and campaigns of the Repub- 
lican party from 1876 to 1896 the four of us worked closely together, 
and always in loyalty and affection for the party and for one an- 
other. In the four conventions and campaigns of 1880, 1884, 1888 
and 1892, four men could never have been more intimate or worked 
more closely together in common endeavor for the party and in 
loyal support of one another, so far as personality was concerned, 
than these four men worked in these four great national contests. 
It was in these campaigns and conventions, and in the many con- 
ferences of great party leaders incident to the activities of the party 
in these twenty years, that I frequently saw the ability and the value 
of Mr. Payne as a political leader and counsellor fully tested and 
as often fully proved. 

During all that period and for the two campaigns following— 
those of 1896 and 1900, when I was no longer a member of the com- 
mittee—his counsel was as much sought in the National Conventions 
and in the national campaigns and as much depended upon as that of 



"An Unappreciated Type" 181 



any leader in the party. Whether in party conferences, that in- 
cluded Mr. Blaine in the campaigns of 1884 and 1888, and General 
Logan, General Harrison, Senator Allison, Senator Hoar, Governor 
Foraker and many other noted leaders, or in National Committee 
conferences with Senator Quay, Senator Piatt and the leading mem- 
bers of the National Executive Committees, or in conferences be- 
tween the Executive Committee of the National Committee and 
noted business men and financiers of the country — all conferences of 
great importance, and some of them history-making in their pecu- 
liarly great importance and in their resulting influence on national 
action — in any and all of these conferences he was a prominent and 
influential spirit. No leader in the Republican party held the con- 
fidence and affection of the rank and file of the party during those 
years more largely than he did. No other party leader was more in- 
fluential with all the party leaders than he was in that period, and 
very few of the party leaders commanded as fully as he did the con- 
fidence of the great business and financial interests of the country; 
for he had won as fine a reputation for strength and safety in the 
business as in the political world. These great qualities made him 
a leader whose counsel the party often sought, and never in vain. 
There was that in his nature which caused all men of discernment 
brought in close contact with him to see and know the sincerity of 
his life, the manliness of his character, the clearness of his vision, 
and the superior stability and sanity of his judgment. He was broad 
and strong and firm in all things, always amiable and never intoler- 
ant, a counsellor to be trusted, a leader to be valued, a man to be 
loved. This was what those of us who served with him so many 
years in the executive work of the National Committee, and saw 
him under many heavy tests, any one of which would have carried 
down any leader not strong and true, early learned to know of him ; 
and every day and year that followed our first acquaintance with 
him served but to increase our admiration for him as a leader and 
our love for him as a man. I could write a whole book full in 
telling of scenes and incidents in National Conventions and cam- 
paigns, and in important events in the party in the intervals, in 
which I have seen Mr. Payne bear a great and controlling part. 
He had a personal acquaintance in the party as wide as the country, 
and wherever he had an acquaintance in the party he had a personal 
friend. This fact, in addition to his rare ability as a counsellor and 
organizer and his high standing in all party councils, always made 
him a great and influential factor in all party conferences or con- 
ventions. These high credentials of personal power on the part of 
Mr. Payne, and his unity with Senator Sawyer and Senator Spooner, 
and the fact that the Wisconsin delegation was one of the delegations 
in National Conventions that always knew its own mind and had the 



182 Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



courage to follow it and always acted as a unit, several times made 
that state the leader in deciding the party nominee for President. 
This was particularly true as to the selection of Garfield in 1880, 
of Harrison in 1888, as it had been also largely true of the choice 
of Blaine in 1884, and as happened again in the choice of McKinley 
in 1896. In 1892, Mr. Payne, for the first time, was separated from 
the other great leaders of his own state, as I have already men- 
tioned, and even in that, the after result of party defeat following 
the choice made but confirmed his wisdom and prescience as a pol- 
itical leader in knowing the relative strength of men as candidates, 
and in knowing, also, the certain and inevitable drift of public opinion. 
In that convention, too, I saw signal confirmation of his devotion to 
party interest rather than to his own personal ambitions; for, al- 
though it is popularly supposed and now historically accepted, that 
Hanna's first attempt for McKinley for President was not made 
until 1896, many of us personally know that instead his first effort 
was made at Minneapolis in 1892, and made with McKinley's full 
knowledge and consent, and made in very active manner. I was 
asked by Mr. Hanna to go as the Chairman of the National Com- 
mittee with Mr. Fessenden and Mr. Payne to see Mr. McKinley. 
We met the great figure of 1896 and 1900 in a room on the top floor 
of the West Hotel, where direct proposals were made to us for a 
swing from Mr. Blaine to Mr. McKinley, and two Cabinet places 
offered to our little party of three — and one of them to Mr. Pa3 r ne. 
It made no impression on him, and had no part in changing his 
opinion that Mr. Blaine alone among Republicans stood any chance 
of election as President in that year. In this instance he merely 
followed the loyal and generous habit of his whole life as a Re- 
publican, or the habit of always putting the party's interest above 
his own interest or ambition. 

I could give hundreds of other incidents connected with Mr. 
Payne in national politics and in proof of his devoted service to the 
Republican party which would bear the same testimony as this one I 
have recalled. Indeed, it was this generous disposition to sacrifice 
himself for his party and to sacrifice self for friends, that made us 
all who were brought into the intimacies of many important years 
and events with him learn to love him at the start and to increase 
the affection with each passing year. He had that rarest and best 
quality in all men — that mingling of strength and tenderness which 
makes at once the strongest and most lovable of men. All people 
brought near to him always felt this gentleness of his nature as 
much as they felt his great strength and force. It was this com- 
bination of things most loved in all men that brought to Mr. Payne 
the greatest and proudest friendship of his life ; and secured for 
him, unsolicited, the high favor of President Roosevelt's recogni- 



"An Unappreciated Type" 183 



tion and approval. It was my fortune, in 1902 and 1903 and early 
in 1904, to be brought several times into close conference with the 
President and Mr. Payne in Washington, on matters concerning the 
welfare of the Republican party. It was a joy to me, who knew 
Mr. Payne so well, to see how completely the President gave him 
his confidence and his affection. I can never forget how at one con- 
ference, ending so late in the night as to be early in the morning, 
which had dealt with many practical and quite vexing questions in 
politics, and in which Mr. Payne had shown his genius in political 
leadership, the President put his arm about him and brought him 
toward me and said, "Harry Payne has been of more comfort and 
more help to me than any man has been since I have been President" 
It was a tribute, coming from such a source, that was worth living a 
whole lifetime to receive. I had never before heard Mr. Payne 
called "Harry,"* for we who had been so close to him and his heart 
for many years had always called him "Henry Payne," almost as if it 
were his whole surname; but I felt the thrill of the great affection 
that sought a title which had in it something of a caress and in- 
timate nearness. Just as this greatest of all Americans of the past 
or the present, as I believe, and as I believe time will confirm, saw 
the rare strength and the equally rare gentleness of Henry Payne, 
and loved him for both, so did all people who ever came close to 
him see and love him for the same rare and noble qualities. 

There was in this fine friend of ours as a man, in a peculiar and 
noble degree, that which made him in his whole journey through 
like a friend to every one who deserved his friendship, and, in his 
kindliness and generosity, to many who did not deserve it — for in 
the wide and instant sympathy of his nature no fellow-being in need 
ever was alien to him. Therefore, memory of him, and affection for 
him will remain, and remain to increase as the years shall pass, and 
as all men shall come more and more to love most of all in every 
human being modesty, honor and sincerity. 

Mr. Payne was familiarly known in Washington as 
"the politician of the cabinet." In no offensive sense was 
this term used; in no offensive sense was it true. If it 
meant that in a city boiling with politics and overrun with 
politicians he was familiar with all the intricacies of the 
craft, could act as a foil upon the schemes of the design- 



*Harry was also the familiar designation used by Senator 
Hanna and by Senator Scott, of West Virginia. 



184 Henry Clay Payne: A Life 

ing, the unpatriotic and the unprincipled, and at the same 
time could put in motion the machinery to advance and to 
perpetuate the principles of the Republican party while 
not neglecting the duties of the office which he had taken 
oath to perform, then the term politician properly de- 
scribes Henry C. Payne. But this term does not accord 
him the praise which is his full clue — the praise belonging 
to the man who dies doing his duty. The closing years 
of Mr. Payne's life, while they brought him great honor, 
brought him also an exacting routine, unrequited toil, un- 
merited criticism, days full of worry, nights pillowed with 
thorns. All these, heroically, unflinchingly, uncomplain- 
ingly, he endured. What had become the rugged path of 
duty he manfully walked until he could tread it no longer. 
Then, his body, enfeebled by disease and stricken with 
death, was tenderly laid to rest in its tomb. 

These pages have lacked their office if they have not 
enabled the reader to appreciate the character of Mr. 
Payne as conspicuous in his public career. In his private 
life there abode many virtues. The cartoonists, who de- 
lighted to sketch him cigar in mouth, knew not that he 
never smoked. In eating and in drinking he was strictly 
temperate. Very seldom the profane word escaped his 
lips ; never, the doubtful word or tale. No man was more 
amiable, more companionable, more beloved. No visitor, 
beseeching a favor, sought him in vain. No one en- 
countering him in the thickest perplexities of business, 
saw a sorry visage, a ruffled temper, a sour disposition. 
Happy himself he perfumed happiness about him. The 
songs he so buoyantly sang in his childhood echoed their 
carol through all his busy years and softly ebbed away 
their sweetness with his dying breath. 



"An Unappreciated Type" 185 

The inscription for his monument, prepared at Mrs. 
Payne's request by her husband's long-time friend, Judge 
James G. Jenkins, is thus conceived: 



3ln mpmorg 



HENRY C. PAYNE 



Sometime Postmaster-General 
of the United States 



lorn Nrjfombfr 23, 1343 
Siph (Prtober 4, 19II4 



An able Executive 

A public-spirited Citizen 

A kindly Neighbor 

A loyal Friend 

A Benefactor of the Deserving 



"After life's fitful fcorr hr elrrus tttrll" 



Snbei 



Alger, Russell A 176 

Allison, William B 181 

Allowances for Separating Pur- 
poses 143 

"Amended List" 149 

American Street Railway Asso- 
ciation 53 

Ames, Eliza Etta, mother 3 

Character and death 4 

Ames, Samuel, ancestor 3 

Amherst 164 

Amusements, interest in 13 

Anson, Frank A 100 

Arthur, Chester A 27 

Commissions Postmaster 27 

Arthur, Peter M 85 

Ashfield, described 2 

Removal from 3 

Recollections of 3 

Last visit to 163 

Austin. William H 100 

Babcock, Joseph W., tribute by.. . 89 
And "charges concerning 

members" 153 

Badger Illuminating Company. ... 58 

Baker, Mr. and Mrs. Edwin 163 

Band of Hope 6 

Baptist Church, Shelburne Falls.. 6 

Baptist Corners 2 

Barbieri, Marie 168 

Barrett. Harrison J 127, 132 

Bass, Hannah, ancestor 1 

Bass, Samuel, descendants of 1 

Baxter, Charles H 100 

Bean, Irving M 24 

Dinner to 35 

At funeral 173 

Beavers, George W., resignation 

of 126 

Trial of 132 

Charges concerning 143 

Becker, Washington 56 

Beggs, John 1 63, 69, 173 

And the Public Service Build- 
ing 64 

Bell Telephone Company 50 

Bennett Law 86, 87 

Bennett, Michael J 86 

Bigelow, Frank G 50, 54. 173 



Billings, Anna, ancestor 2 

Bingham, Theodore A 54 

Bissell, Wilson S 118 

Blaine, James G 

43, 47, 176, 1/8, 181, 182 

Bleeker and Van Dyke 20 

Blind, provision for the, in the 

mails 116 

Board of Fire and Police Com- 
missioners 33. 34, 45 

Bonaparte, Charles J., and post 

office investigation.. .130, 131 

Bowen, Alfred 5 

Bowen, Diana S., teacher 4, 5, 17 

Attachment between Henry 

and 5 

Journey with 163 

Bovcott and strike 61, 74, 75, 77 

Bradley, William H 48, 56 

Braintree 1 

Brewer, David J 84 

Bribery charged, as to extension 

of railway franchises. .70, 72 
As to re-election of Senator 

Spooner 09 

Brigham, Jerome R 34, 46 

Bristow, Joseph L 114 

To investigate post office 

frauds 124, 126 

Instructions from Mr. Payne, 

received by 125 

And the Tulloch charges. 128, 129 

Letter of, to Mr. Payne 133 

Tribute by 140 

Correspondence with House 

Committee 147 

Britt, Oren E 56 

Brodhead, Edward H 50 

Bromwell, Jacob H., and the post 

office investigation.. . 123, 134 

Brown, Henry B 84 

Brown, Horace M 173 

Brown, Thomas H 43 

Bryan, William J 89 

His vote in 1900 113 

"Bryan's Fallacies" 91 

Buckstaff, George A 100 

Buffington, Byron A 100 

Bullard, Silas' 100 



188 



Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



Cabinet position, mentioned for... 90 

Appointed to a 1 14 

Rumors of withdrawal from.. 135 
Mr. McKinley refuses, to Mr. 

Payne 91, 179 

Mr. Payne as politician of 

the Cabinet 183 

Cameron, Angus, Senator 26, 37 

Cameron, Winfield S 3, 162 

Visit to 162 

Campaigning as a science 43 

Cannon, Joseph G., tribute by 159 

Carpenter, Matthew H., Senator.. 25 
Defeat for re-election and re- 
sult 26 

Cary, Alfred L., tribute by 22 

At funeral 173 

Castle, Henry A 130 

Central Committee, Republican 

party 42 

Central Republican Club 40 

Central Trust Company 58, 65 

Charges concerning members of 

Congress 142, 149, 151 

Charlemont 163 

Chicago and Calumet Railroad... 84 
Chicago and Northern Pacific Rail- 
road 84 

Chicago Herald, as to gold plank. 97 
Civil Service, in Milwaukee Post 

Office 31, 32 

In city of Milwaukee 34, 45 

As Postmaster-General. . .34, 119 

Clark, Mrs. Elihu 11 

Clark, Lucius, employer 10 

Clark, William and Company 10 

Clarkson, James S.. tribute by. .. .176 

Clayton, Powell, tribute by 159 

Cleveland, Grover, removes Post- 
master Payne 27, 47 

Candidate for President. . .86, 88 
Collins, Wallace G., tribute by. ... 48 
Committee on the Post Office and 

Post Roads 142, 143, 154 

Company H, 10th Massachusetts 

regiment 10, 163, 165 

Congressmen, charges concerning 142 

Conger, Arthur L 180 

Conrad, Holmes, and post office 

investigation 130, 131 

Conway 163 

Cooley, Alford W., on Mr. Payne 

and civil service 119 

Cooper, Henry A., as to "charges 

against members" 153 



Cortelyou, George B., tribute by. .118 

Chairman of National Com- 
mittee 161 

Coxey and Coxeyites 83 

Cream City Railroad Company. . . 56 
Crombie, William H., partner.... 19 

Cromwell, William N 59, 69 

Cullom, Shelby M 1 1 1 

Davidson, James 100 

Davidson, Randall T., archbishop 165 

Davis, Charles W 100 

Davis, DeWitt 24 

Death of Mr. Payne 168 

Deerfield 164 

Dennett, Fred A 100 

Devos, William H 100 

Dewey, George, at funeral 171 

Dinner at Milwaukee Club 35 

Doherty, Michael 165 

Dover, Elmer 174 

Drafting into Armv 11 

Dudley, William W 180 

Dunlap, Rev. E. Slater 168, 171 

Durand, Loyal R 23 

Dyer, Charles E 173, 174 

Dyer, George 52 

Earling, Albert J 162, 169, 172 

Edison Electric Illuminating Com- 
pany 58 

Edison General Electric Company 63 

Eldred, John E 23 

Elections, early interest in 6, 23 

How to win 36, 43 

Electricity as motive power.... 57, 59 

Ellsworth, Lemuel 24 

Elmer, Laura, ancestor 3 

Employes, kindness towards 59 

Enlistment, letter urging 10 

His own, refused 10, 163 

Epitaph 185 

Erie Telephone and Telegraph Co. 51 

Erwin, James W 132 

Evening Wisconsin 29, 43 

Ewing. John M 24 

Extension of franchise of street 

railways 68 

Benefits of 71 

Fares on street railwav, reduction 

of " 64, 66, 68 

Obligatory four cent 71 

Farmers' Loan and Trust Co 80 

Fearing. A. G 9 

Fessenden, Samuel 176, 180, 182 

Field, Charles, friend n 

Field, Stephen J 84 



Index 



189 



Fink, Henry 24 

First National Bank, director of. . 52 

Fisher, Charles T 100 

Flagg, Ahner S too 

Fogo, William M 100 

Forakcr, Joseph B 97, 176, 181 

Forest Home Cemetery 174 

Four cent fares 64, 71 

Fowler, Daniel W 29 

Fox River Valley Electric Railway 

Co 53 

Franchises, litigation as to non- 
user of 66 

And as to extension of 68, 71 

Franklin Academy 5 

Friendships in Politics 180 

Froehlich. William H 100 

Fuller, Melville W 114 

Fuller, Oliver C. 173 

Funeral at Washington 171 

In Milwaukee 173 

Garfield, James A., nominated for 

president 43, 182 

Election of 43 

Geilfuss, Alhert B 42 

Gittings, Mehetahle, ancestor 2 

Gold plank in St. Louis platform, 

91, 92, 93, 94, 95 

Mr. Payne's history of 96 

Goodloe. William C 180 

Governor, election for 40 

Ludington and Taylor 40 

Smith and Mallory 42 

Smith and Jenkins 42 

Peck and Hoard 87 

Peck and Spooner 87 

Grant, Ulysses S 25 

Commissions postmaster 27 

Gray, Elisha 49 

Grav, Rev. E. H 6 

Grayson, Cary T., M. D..166, 168, 172 

Greenfield 164 

Gregory, John G 19 

Gresham. Walter Q 27 

Griggs, John W 130 

Guenther. Richard 35 

Hall, Alhert R 101 

Halsey. Lawrence W 69 

Hanna, Marcus A. .88, 92, 93, 95, 96, 
97, 1 1 j. 175. 183 

Death of 160 

\n 1 Cabinet position for Mr. 

Payne 179, 180, 182 

Harlan, John M 84 

Harrison. Benjamin. .86, 178, 181, 182 
Haskins, Charles H 50 



1 [atfield 164 

I lay, James. 1 43 

Hay, John, tribute by 157 

Hay resolution 143, 149, 150 

Hayes, Rutherford B., Commis- 
si! his postmaster 27 

Race for presidency 41 

1 leath. Perry S 130 

Merrick. Myron T 93, 95, 96, 97 

Tribute by 97 

Hill, Robert 23, 24 

Hinckley, F. E 56 

Hitchcock, Ethan A., tribute by.. 159 

At funeral 172 

Hoar, George F 181 

Hoard, William D 86, 87 

Hobart. Garrett A 176, 180 

Hogan, "General" 83 

Honesty in politics 44 

Hoosac Mountain 163 

"Hot air" statement. 129, 130, 131, 135 

Howe, James H 37 

Howe, Timothy O., Senator 25 

Tenders Milwaukee post office 26 

Hurd, Frank E 101 

Hurlbut, William H 101 

Husband and wife, not both to be 

in office 116 

Indianapolis Monetary Convention 54 
Injunctions in Northern Pacific 

receivership 81 

Investigation of Post Office De- 
partment 123 

Results and close of 133, 134 

Jamestown. New York, visit to. 162 

Post office at 162 

Jenkins, James G., tribute by 14 

Mentioned 23, 42, 80, 85 

As judge in Northern Pacific 
case 80 

Injunctions by, in Northern 
Pacific case 81 

At funeral 173 

Writes epitaph i8=; 

Jensen, Andrew 101 

Jewell. Marshall 27 

Johnson. Jerome B 2Q 

Johnson, William M 114 

Join-. Mrs. Charles P 20 

Jones. I )avid F 101 

Jones. Miss Louise 161, 172 

Jones. William A 101 

Kansas Republicans for Mr. Payne 

fur the Cabinet or 

Kendrick. John W 84. 85 

Kerens, Richard C 1S0 



190 



Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



Key, David M 27 

Keyes, Elisha W 174 

Knox, Philander C 117, 127 

Kohlsaat, Herman H. .92, 93, 94, 95 

96, 97 

La Follette, Robert M 170 

Lake Park, Milwaukee, gift to or- 
nament 54 

Lamoreux, Clarence A 101 

Leases of buildings by congress- 
men 143 

Letter boxes on street cars 117 

Letter carriers 3 2 

Lewis, William T 101 

Lions, stone, gift to Milwaukee of 54 

Liquor traffic, regulation 45 

Litigation over street railway fares 65 
Over non-user of franchises.. 66 
As to extension of franchises. 69 
As to Northern Pacific re- 
ceivership 79 

"Little Red Schoolhouse" 87 

Lockwood, John 17 

Lodge, Henry C 95 

Logan, John A 181 

Lotteries and the mails 116 

Loud, Eugene F 123 

And the post office investiga- 
tion ....124 

Letter of, as to the investiga- 
tion 134 

Lowry, Israel H 57 

Ludington, Harrison 40. 4* 

Lynde, William P 40 

Lyon, Mary 2 

Machen, August W 131, 135. I4 n 

Madden, Edwin C 114 

Magruder, G. Lloyd 166, 168, 172 

Mail matter of certain classes, con- 
solidation of 116 

Mailer, Andrew C 101 

Mailing tubes systems installed. .117 
Mails, overcrowding with second 

class matter 116 

Malabv, Theodore 20 

Mallory, Amarylis. ancestor 3 

Mallory, James A 42 

Manlev. Joseph H 112 

Letter of tribute from 160 

Manschot, John H 42 

Mason, William L 57 

Tribute bv 73 

At death bed of Mr. Payne. . .168 

Maynard, Austin S., friend 7, 10 

Maynard, Charles A., friend 6, 7 

'Letter to, urging enlistment.. 10 



Maynard, Eliza 1 163 

McCall, Samuel W 154 

McGarigle, George A 29 

McGillivray, James J 101 

McGregor, Thomas W 132 

McKinley, William 

89, 92, 93,. 94, 95, 96, 97 

Tenders foreign mission 91 

In campaign of 1900 107 

Nominated for president, 1900, 

no, 182 

Elected 112 

Death 113 

Refuses Cabinet position to 

Mr. Payne 91, 179 

McKinley National Memorial As- 
sociation 54 

McLeod, John D 50, 173 

Tribute by 5 1 

Mehan, William 165 

Members of Congress, charges 

concerning 142 

Merriam, William R 92, 93, 96, 97 

Tribute by 94 

Merriman, Charles W 101 

Merritt, John A 127, 130 

And the Tulloch charges 128 

Metcalf, Victor H., tribute by 158 

At funeral 172, 173 

Michener, Louis T 127 

Miller, Benjamin K 50 

Miller, Benjamin K, Jr 69 

Miller, George P 173 

Milwaukee, early reference to.... 16 

Description of 17 

Democratic 24 

To be made Republican. . .25, 40 

Accomplished 43, 44 

Street railways in 56 

Mr. Payne's last visit to 161 

Milwaukee and Northern Rail- 
road Co., officer of 52 

Milwaukee and Wauwatosa Motor 

Railway Co 58 

Milwaukee City Railroad Company 56 

Milwaukee Club dinner 35 

Milwaukee-Downer College, gift 

to 54 

Milwaukee Electric Railway Com- 
pany 56 

Milwaukee Electric Railway and 

Light Company, The. .58, 78 
Milwaukee Gas Light Company, 

director of 52 

Milwaukee Journal 109 



Index 



191 



Milwaukee Sentinel, upon Mr. 

Whitney 167 

Milwaukee Street Railway Com- 
pany 57> 58 

Milwaukee Telephone Co 50 

Minneapolis Tribune, tribute by..i7S 

Minnesota for sound money 94 

Minocqua, interests there 49 

Mitchell. John L 91 

Mobile Weekly Press as to unequal 

representation 103 

Moody, William H., tribute by... 137 

Morris, Howard 173 

Morton, Josiah L., friend 16, 19 

Morton, Paul, tribute by 158 

At funeral 172, 173 

Mount Holyoke, dinner there 16 

Mount Tom 164 

Mulvane, David W 174 

Munson, Oliver G .101 

National Republican Committee, 

see Republican 
National Republican Convention, 
see Republican 

Nazro, John 23 

Negroes and unequal representa- 
tion 103 

New, Harry S., tribute by 89 

On National Committee 112 

At funeral 174 

New York, selection of sites for 

post offices in 117 

New York Evening Post, on 
Payne's urging of Roose- 
velt's nomination Ill 

New York Press, telegram to, as 
to unequal representa- 
tion 102, 113 

New York Sun, and Elihu Root 

for vice-president 107 

New York Tribune and Elihu 

Root for vice-persident. .107 
On Roosevelt and vice-presi- 
dency in 

And the "Amended List" 149 

Nicholson, Isaac L 55 

At funeral 173 

North Adams 16, 162 

North American Company 56, 57 

Northampton 9 

Last visit to 164 

North Milwaukee Investment 

Company 5 2 

Northern Pacific Railroad Com- 
pany 79. 80 



Injunctions in receivership of 81 

Raids by Coxeyitcs 83 

Nowell, Winslow A. .18, 24, 173, 174 

Oakes, Thomas F 80, 85 

Oakman, Walter G 56 

Old Settlers' Club, Milwaukee... 53 

One Hundred, Committee of 42 

O'Ncil, Edward 17 

Osborne, William M 96 

Osier, William, M. D 166 

Overstreet, Jesse, correspondence 
between, and Mr. Payne 

144. 145- 146, 147. 149 
Remarks in House on omitted 

letter 153 

Owen, David C 173 

Pabst, Gustav G 173 

Packard, L. M 5 

Page, John H 84 

Pain, Paine, see Payne, 

Pall-bearers 173 

Panama, post offices on canal zone 

at 116 

Parcels post conventions 115 

Parker, Alton B 85 

Patent medicines and the mails... 116 

Paul, George H 28 

Payne, Frederick W., brother.. .4, 24 

Payne, H. C. and company 19 

Payne, Henry Clay, birth 3 

School in Shelburne Falls... 4, 5 
Early interest in elections and 

newspapers 6 

School at Powers Institute... 7 

Youthful character 8, 10 

In Northampton 9 

Letter urging enlistment 10 

Interest in War for Union... 10 

Unable to enlist 11 

Dinner to, at Mount Holyoke. 16 
Removal to Milwaukee. ... 16, 17 

Early business there 18, 25 

Residences there 19 

His marriage 20 

A republican in politics 24 

Desires to make Milwaukee 

republican 25 

Success 43 

Tender of Milwaukee post 

office 25, 26 

As postmaster 27 

Removal .. .27. 28, 47 

Addresses upon leaving office. 29 
Dinner to. at Milwaukee Club 35 
Milwaukee made republican. . 40 



192 



Henry Clay Payne : A Life 



Various elections participated 

in 41 

Secretary of Committee of 

One Hundred 42 

Secretary of State Central 

Committee 42 

As a campaigner. ..36, 43, 44, 45 
In business in Northern Wis- 
consin 48 

In telephone business 50 

Officer of various bodies 52 

Liberality of 55 

Street railways, interest in 56, 57 
As receiver of street railroad. 58 
As officer of electric road. ... 59 
Responsibility in connection 

with roads 59, 62 

His management of strike. ... 60 

Animosity towards 62 

Selected site for Terminal 

building 64 

Assists litigation against reduc- 
tion of fares 64 

And against forfeiture of 

franchises 66 

And concerning franchise ex- 
tension 68 

As receiver of Northern Pa- 
cific Railroad Company. . 79 
Injunctions obtained in re- 
ceivership 81 

Resignation as receiver 85 

Delegate in 1888 to Republi- 
can National Convention. 86 

Same in 1892 87 

Same in 1896 88 

Same in 1900 109 

Urged to be chairman of Na- 
tional Committee 88 

Declined, and became vice- 
chairman 88 

Management of campaign of 

1896 ..89 

Mentioned for Cabinet posi- 
tion 90, 91 

Tendered a foreign mission. . 91 
Mentioned as United States 

Senator 91 

Insists on gold plank in Saint 

Louis platform 92 

His version of history of the 

gold plank 96 

Friendship for Senator 

Spooner 99 

And unequal representation in 
conventions 101 



For Elihu Root for vice-presi- 
dent 107 

For Theodore Roosevelt for 

vice-president 108 

Roosevelt protests against re- 
moval of, from National 

Committee 109 

Speech by, in Philadelphia, 

1900 no 

Pressed to be candidate for 

vice-president no 

Urges Roosevelt for vice- 
presidency at Philadel- 
phia ill 

Management of campaign of 

1900 112 

Trip to Europe, 1901 1 13 

Failing health. . . 113, 125. 152, 160 
Appointed Postmaster-Gen- 
eral 114 

Residence in Washington. ... 114 
Reforms by as Postmaster- 
General 115 

And the Spoils system 119 

Investigation of Post Office 

Department 123 

Trip to West Indies 126, 137 

Attacked as opposed to inves- 
tigation 126 

And James N. Tyner. . . . 125, 127 
And the Tulloch charges. ... 128 
Letter from President to, on 

the investigation 136 

And charges concerning Con- 
gressmen . 142. 154 

Correspondence of, with Mr. 
Overstreet ....144, 145, 146, 

147, 149 
Criticised by Congressmen. .. 152 
Interview of, with Mr. Whit- 
ney 153 

And Select Committee on Re- 
lations of Members 154 

Trip to Galveston, Texas.... 155 
At Republican National Con- 
vention, 1904 161 

Gavel presented to 161 

Trip to Portland and Boston. 161 
Last visit to New England. .. 162 

llis last illness 165 

His last words 167 

His death 168 

Bulletin of death 168 

Proclamations upon death of. 169 

Funeral 171 

As a politician 175 



Index 



193 



His character in brief 184 

His epitaph 185 

Payne, Imogene, sister 3. *7 

Visit to. 162 

Journey with 162 

Payne, Joseph, ancestor 2 

Payne, Joseph R., ancestor I, 2 

Payne, Lydia V., wife, marriage 

and early illness 20 

Present at induction into Cab- 
inet H4 

At her husband's last illness. .167 

Payne, Mary Eliza, sister 4 

Payne, Moses, ancestor I, 54 

Payne, Orrin P., father 3 

Character and death 4 

Payne, Samuel, ancestor r 

Payne, Stephen, ancestor I, 2, 54 

Peck, George R 174 

Peck, George W 87 

Peirce, Charles L 23, 24 

Peirce, Clarence E 101 

Pennsylvania Historical Society. . 53 

Perry, R. Ross 127 

Petley, James 58 

Pfister, Charles F 50, 55. 69, 173 

Physicians in post offices abolished 116 

Pierce. Solon W 101 

Piatt, Thomas C 95. 176. 180 

Politician, Mr. Payne as a 135, 141. J 75 

"Politician of the Cabinet" 183 

Portor, Elijah 2 

Porter, Mr. and Mrs 163 

Postage stamp, head of woman on 116 
Identical pieces mailed with- 
out ...116 

Postal card, unused, redemption 

of, when soiled 116 

Postal convention, with Cuba.... 115 

Postal service 1 15 

Postmaster-General, mentioned for 90 

Appointment as 114 

Improvements by Mr. Payne 

as US, 121 

Investigation of Department. . 123 

Postmaster of Milwaukee 27 

Removal by President Cleve- 
land 27, 47 

Post Office. Milwaukee 17 

Tendered Mr. Payne 25 

Retendered and accepted 26 

Under Mr. Payne 27 

Statistics and progress of 28 

Farewell addresses upon leav- 
ing 29 



Placed under Civil Service 

rules 33 

Post Office, Shelburne Falls 5 

Post Offices, tone of, improved. . .116 

Powers, Edward Epps 7 

Powers Institute 7 

Pratt, Edward F., partner 18 

Presidential conventions, unequal 

representation in 101 

Presidential election, Grant and 

Greeley 24, 25 

Hayes and Tilden 41 

Garfield and Hancock 43 

Cleveland and Blaine 47 

Harrison and Cleveland 86 

Cleveland and Harrison 87 

McKinley and Bryan 88, 89 

McKinley and Bryan, 1900. . . 

107, 112 

Roosevelt and Fairbanks 161 

Procter, John R., on Mr. Payne 

and civil service 119 

And the Tulloch charges 128 

Proctor, Redfield 95, 96 

Tribute by 93 

Public Library, Milwaukee 18, 23 

Public Service Building 64 

Putnam, Henry C 101 

Quarles, Joseph V 173 

Quay, Matthew S 105, 176, 180 

Ray, Charles 5° 

Ray, George H 101 

Receiver of Street Railway...... 58 

Receiver of Northern Pacific Rail- 
road Company 79 

Resignation as 85 

Representation, unequal 101 

Republican National Committee. 

member of... 44, 88, 112, 161 
Attempt to exclude him from 

88, 109 
Becomes acting chairman of. .160 

Chairman 161 

Republican National Convention 

in 1876 178. 180 

In 1880 43, 178, 180, 182 

In 1884 180, 182 

In 1888 86, 181. 182 

In 1892 87, 178. 182 

In 1896 88. 182 

In 1900 107, 109, 112 

In 1904 160, 161 

Review of Reviews, as to unequal 

representation 105 

As to rural free delivery 115 

As to Mr. Bristow 139 



194 



Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



Reynolds, John F 101 

Rixey, Presley M., M. D 166, 168 

Robb, Charles H., appointed assis- 
tant Attorney-General.. . . 127 

Tribute by 138 

Roehr, Julius E 101 

Roosevelt, Theodore 53, 54 

For vice-president 108 

Mr. Payne for 108 

Protests against Mr. Payne's 
removal from National 

Committee 109 

Nomination of, for vice-presi- 
dent in 

Becomes president 113 

Appoints Mr. Payne in Cab- 
inet 114, 180 

And investigation of post 

office 124, 125 

Letter of, to Mr. Payne, on 

the investigation 136 

At Shelburne Falls 164 

And last illness of Mr. Payne, 

166, 168 
Proclamation by, on Mr. 

Payne's death 169 

At funeral 171 

And Mr. Payne as friends. . .183 

Roosevelt, Mrs. Theodore 114 

And last illness of Mr. Payne 166 

At funeral 171 

Root, Elihu, for vice-president. .. 107 
At National Convention, 1904, 161 

Rose. David S 69 

Proclamation by, upon Mr. 

Payne's death 170 

Ross, Worth G 156, i6t 

Tribute bv 156 

Rouse, Henry C 80, 85 

Runge, Carl 69 

Rural free delivery system 115 

Rusk, Jeremiah M 37 

Rutherford, Gilbert 101 

Saint Louis platform and the gold 

plank 91 

Sanderson, Edward 35, 42, 46 

Sanger, Casper M 42 

Sawyer, Philetus.35, 177, 178, 179. 181 

Schley, Charles 173 

Schneider, R. P. 174 

Scott, Nathan B 112, 160, 183 

Tribute of 139 

Seaman. William H 65 

Select Committee on Relations of 

Members 152, 154 



Senator, mentioned as candidate 

for 91 

Shallenberger, William S...114, 173 
Shaughnessy, Sir Thomas G, trib- 
ute by 38 

Shaw, Leslie M 117 

Tribute by 157 

Shelburne Falls described 3 

Residence at 4 

Regard for 7 

Last visit to 163 

President Roosevelt at 164 

Sheldon, George R 58, 69 

Shepherd, Henry II 

Sherwin, F. R., employer 9, 16 

Sherwin, Nowell and Pratt 17 

Shirkshire 3 

Sholes, Louis 24 

Shoup, George L 112 

Smith, Mr. and Mrs. Albert E...164 
Smith, Charles E., resigns from 

Cabinet 114 

And post office investigation. .128 
And Tulloch charges. ... 128, 130 
Smith, Henry Babington, upon 

Mr. Payne's death 170 

Smith. Rev. Roland Cotton, D. D..166 

Officiates at funeral 171 

Smith, William E 42 

Snow, Jabez 1 

Society of Colonial Wars, Wis- 
consin 54 

Southern States in Republican 
conventions and elec- 
tions 102. 113 

Spence, Thomas W 52 

Spofford, Charles A., tribute by. . 75 

Spoils system 31, 45, 119 

Spooner, John C...177, 178. 179, 181 

Tribute by ^7 

Candidate for Governor S7 

Re-election to Senate 99 

Friendship for Mr. Payne. ... 99 
Re-election charged to bribery 99 
Speech in Senate on Mr. Payne, 

lift 137, 155 
On post office investigation. .137 

At funeral 174 

Stanley, Charles A 101 

Stanley, Edward Georsre Villiers, 
Lord, upon Mr. Payne's 

death 170 

Stark. Charles G 50 

State Central Committee 42. 47 



Index 



195 



State Historical Society of Wiscon- 
sin S3 

Gift of his cabinet chair to. .. 53 

Stebbins, DeWayne 101 

Stewart, Graeme 174 

Stockholders, employes as 59 

Stoddard and Lincoln 10 

Stone, Jesse 101 

Stone, Melville E 92, 93, 95 

Stone lions for Lake Park, Mil- 
waukee 54 

Stout, James H 101 

Street railways in Milwaukee 

17. 56, 57 
Strike on Milwaukee street rail- 
way line 60, 74, 75, 77 

Sunderland 164 

Taylor, George W 101 

Tavlor, Horace A 37, 47 

Taylor, William R 40 

Telephone, early experiments.... 50 
Tenth Massachusetts regiment 

10, 163, 165 

Terminal station, Milwaukee 64 

Thayer, Lyman W 101 

Third ward fire, Milwaukee 55 

Thomas, Elias 161 

Thomas, John W ior 

Thomas, Mary Ware 20 

Thompson, Henry M 101 

Tilden, Samuel J 41 

Tillman, Benjamin R 82 

Timber enterprises 49 

Timmc, Ernest G 101 

Tomahawk, interests at 48 

Townsend, Akerley 24 

Tracewell, Robert J 130 

Transfers on railways in Milwau- 
kee 71 

Treat, Nathaniel B 101 

Troy 17 

True. John M 101 

Tulloch, Seymour W 127 

Receives note from Mr. 

Payne 128 

His reply 129 

Interview with Mr. Bristow..l2g 
"Tulloch charges, the". . . 127, 129, 131 

Turner's Falls 165 

Tyner, James N., resignation of, 

asked 125 

Removal of papers of.... 127, 132 

Death of 132 

"Unappreciated type, an" 175 

Unequal representation in presi- 
dential conventions 101 



Upton, Ellsworth 132 

Vance, David 24, 173 

Vanderlip, Erank A 130 

Van Dyke, Lydia Wood, wile... 20 
See Payne, Lydia V. 

Van Dyke, Richard 20 

Van Dyke and Malaby 20 

Veasey, Ellen, ancestor 1 

Vice-president, pressed as candi- 
date for no 

Vilas, William E, tribute by 38 

Villard, Henry 53- 57. 58, 68, 73 

Villiers, Edward George, Lord 
Stanley, on Mr. Payne's 

death 170 

Voters, how to win 36, 43 

Wallber, Emil, candidacy for 

mayor 45 

Walker, George H 17 

Wall. Edward C 58 

Tribute by 37 

War for the Union, interest in. . 10, 12 

Ward, Lafayette, teacher 7 

Warner, John, employer 9 

Washington Avenue, Milwaukee, 
litigation concerning 

tracks on 66 

Washington, Mr. Payne's resi- 
dence in 114 

Washington Post, Mr. Payne's 
statement in, as to investi- 
gation 126 

And the Tulloch charges. .. .128 
On the Post Office investiga- 
tion 134 

Waters, Charles M 143 

Weil, Benjamin M 26 

Welch, Charles H 101 

Welton. Chauncey B 101 

West, Edward K., tribute by 41 

West, Henry H 23 

West, Samuel C 27 

West Indies, trip to 126, 137 

West Side Railroad Company. .56, 57 

Wotmore. Charles W 69 

Whelan, John W 101 

Wheeler, William G 101 

Whitcomb, Henry F 50, 173 

Whitefish Bay Railroad Com- 
pany 56. 58 

Whitehead, John M 101 

Whitney, Francis H.. private sec- 
retary. Milwaukee 114 

Same in Washington 1 14 

As to "hot air" statement 129 



196 



Henry Clay Payne: A Life 



As to errors in report of Post 
Office Committee of 
House 153 

At death of Mr. Payne. ..167, 169 

At funeral 172 

Whitney, Leroy C 173 

Wight, William W 49 

Wiley, Ariosto A., tribute by 15 

Willett, James P 127 

Wilson, James, tribute by 158 

At funeral 172, 173 

Wilson, William L 118 

Winkler, Frederick C 34 

Tribute by 45 

Winston, P. B 79 

Wipperman, Herman C 101 



Wisconsin for sound money 94 

Wisconsin Central Railroad Com- 
pany 79 

Wisconsin Telephone Company. . 50 

Mr. Payne as officer of. . . .50, 51 

Withee, Levi 101 

Wolff, George W 101 

Woman's head on postage stamp. .116 

Woodworth, Dempster W 101 

Wright, C. B. B 173 

Wylie, George 101 

Wyman, Charles D 63 

Tribute by 76 

Young Men's Association elections 22, 
Young Men's Republican Club. . . 

24, 25, 35, 40 



September 5, 1907. 

My dear Mrs. Payne: - 

I was the chairman ofthe committee of five 
that had charge of the canpaign of Gen. Benjamin 
Harrison for nomination in the Spring and Summer 
of 1888. We had scarcely opened our headquarters 
in the Grand Pacific Hotel when Mr. Payne came to 
us, discussed the situation in some detail, and 
said that he had determined to support Gen. Har- 
rison for the nomination. He then gave us a very 
clear view of the situation in the Wisconsin del- 
egation, of which he and Senator Spooner were the 
leading members, and we approved ofthe plans he 
then had in mind for increasing Gen. Harrison's 
vote in the delegation and holding it for him 
withas little diminution as possible. Because of 
the fact that Judge Greshan visited Wisconsin in 
his judicial capacity, that state being a part of 
his circuit, there were certain legal and busi- 
ness interests that were very anxious indeed to be 
on good terms with him. Those interests made Mr. 
Payne a great deal of trouble in the delegation. 
For instance, they hammered Senator Spooner con- 
stantly, and insisted that the Wisconsin delega- 
tion should vote for Judge Gresham once, at least, 
or that it should divide its vote between Harrison, 
Gresham, Sherman and others, the whole object be- 
ing to deprive Harrison of the prestige which 
would come fromthe announcement of a big vote from 
the Wisconsin delegation. The state was recognized 
as close and somewhat uncertain. Its political 
leaders were considered as among the ableBt in the 



country. A large German Republican population 
resided in the state, and]it was thought that the 
vote of the delegation would, in considerable de- 
gree, reflect the views of the German Republicans 
throughout the country. We considered the Wiscon- 
sin delegation, next to that of Indiana, as the 
one of the greatest value to Gen. Harrison, and 
we hailed with delight the announcement made by 
Mr. Payne that he proposed to vote for Gen. Harri- 
son and use his entire influence for him. The 
difficulties in his own delegation, that I have 
briefly outlined, pursued him every waking hour. 
I have never known a more persistent assault on 
a political leader than was made on Mr. Payne by 
the interests above referred to in that convention. 
At 3 o'clock every morning he would come to our 
rooms and ask Gen. Dudley and myself to go to his 
room, where we would find at least one discouraged 
man of much prominence, who at heart f/ished to 
comply with the demands of the Greshsa supporters. 
There we would say what we could in support of Mr. 
Payne and hie views, end we would agree upon the 
plans for the day. We would then get to bed at 
4 o'clock, rise at 6 o'clock and go through the 
same strife and turmoil until 4 o'clock the next 
morning. Mr. Payne held the Harrison men in that 
delegation together, did not let one man escape, 
end stood practically alone against the assaults 
of the most powerful business and professional in- 
terests in Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, to 
say nothing of certain influences centering in New 
York City. As Wisconsin was almost at the end of 
the roll-call, if there had been a stampede in 



that delegation or a break of any consequence 
from Gen. Harrison, I then believed and still be- 
lieve he would have been defeated for the nomina- 
tion. When I returned to Indianapolis I gave 
Gen. Harrison an inside view of the work done in 
the Wisconsin delegation by Mr. Payne f as well as 
by the delegation itself, and I said to him that 
I felt sure that his nomination came as a gift 
front Wisconsin more than from any other state save 
his own state of Indiana, and that the major part 
of what was done for him by the Wisconsin delega- 
tion was to be attributed to Mr. Payne. Gen. Har- 
rison fully agreed to this statement, end many 
times afterwards he spoke to me in hearty appre- 
ciation of what Mr. Payne had done for him. 

I will now say what you probably know, al- 
though it is not known to many, and that is that 
Gen. Harrison came very near offering Mr. Payne a 
place in his cabinet early in February, 1889, and 
I have no doubt he would have done so if he had 
been able to find a suitable Secretary for the De- 
partment of Agriculture without going to your state 
Finally, it seemed that Governor Rusk of Wisconsin 
was the only man for the Department of Agriculture 
who measured up to Gen. Harrison's standard, and 
when he told me that he had concluded to give the 
place to Governor Rusk, he said that he had reach- 
ed that conclusion regretfully, because it would 
deprive him of the pleasure of offering a place 
in his cabinet to Mr. Payne. 

It must not be thought that the efforts of 
Mr. Payne in the convention of 1868 were confined 
to the Wisconsin delegation. On the contrary, we 



gladly took him into our entire confidence, brought 
him into our secret sessions, asked and took his 
advice with reference to our whole campaign, for 
we soon found that his knowledge of men was wide 
and hie judgment of political tactics and strategy 
unexcelled. In addition to allthis, he went to 
his friends and acquaintances in the delegations 
from various parts of the country and was in- 
strumental in persuading a goodly number of them 
to support Gen, Harrison, I very much doubt if 
any other man in that convention secured more votes 
for Gen, Harrison then did Mr. Payne, 

It has always been a very deep regret to me 
that Mr, Payne was not in the Harrison cabinet, but 
I was one of the thousands of his friends who re- 
joiced when the honor came to him in another 
administration. 

The memory of Henry C, Payne is very dear tc 
me, and I am glad indeed to have the opportunity 
of stating briefly something of the services he 
rendered his party and his country in the conven- 
tion of 1888, 

With best wishes, I remain, 

Sincerely yours, 

L. T, Michener, 



Mrs, Henry C, Payne, 

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





005 851 582 6 



